


Finding You in the Buckass of Nowhere

by Cattailbow



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: A getting together fic, Alcohol cw in ch6, Dad 76, Fluff, Hana Song is a Little Shit, Joel Morricone, M/M, NaNoWriMo 2019, Pending date at an IKEA, Pre-Relationship, Secret Identities, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates, canon typical violence and some medical/wound descriptions in ch 11, dad reyes, found family sort of towards the end, its mostly soft except later.... there is a Battle, my weird ass attempt at comedy, probably a medium burn, ren faire ????? do i tag that???, they make a fucking bowl at a pottery studio like a pair of heterosexuals rip
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-01
Updated: 2019-11-29
Packaged: 2021-01-16 17:06:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 50,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21274703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cattailbow/pseuds/Cattailbow
Summary: Jesse is sent on another undercover recon mission as Joel Morricone, freelance reporter. Just one thing: he neither expects to meet the one person he’s been waiting for his entire life, nor being sent to Alaska for a yakuza-sponsored Renaissance faire in July.(t/n: jesse realizes hanzo is his soulmate and hanzo immediately fucks off to who knows where bc he doesn't know)





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> hello my kitties. So while i cant promise anything short of a disaster via no beta (we die like theydies and gentlethems), I hope u have fun! In this au, genji has joined overwatch and the dragons short has happened, but hanzo hasn't left the clan yet. Jesse is Jesse. Hana Song is the hugest shit. guaranteed happy ending but not b4 some light gay drama. lmk if you'd like me to tag anything i will try to be as accommodating as possible! 
> 
> this is for nanowrimo 2019 so expect sporadic updates all throughout the month of november! ratings and tags will change as the story progresses.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> EDIT: there have been some changes to the rating of this fic. It was initially an M rated fic but now it's a T rated fic bc I removed some material. More details on ch 12 notes, but this fic should still be a lot of fun!

**PROLOGUE**

The sun rises high into the sky, casting shadows on everything residing on the surface. Jesse gives a loud yawn before scratching his scrappy goatee and turning the page on a health textbook he was given by Angela by instruction of his residing commander. He didn’t know how the conversation had started, but during a debriefing on the latest mission in one of the meeting rooms, one of the punks on the Blackwatch team had decided to give Gabriel Reyes a run for his money and ask if he had a soulmate waiting back home. Gabe, of course, had laughed in that guy’s face. He laughed like it was the funniest thing in the entire world.

And just as he was laughing, something miraculous happened. The team was visited by none other than Overwatch’s Strike Commander, who not only served as a face for publicity stunts, but also was the head of operations. And the strike teams, hence the title.

“He better not.” Soldier: 76, better known as Jack Morrison, said as he practically kicked the meeting room door open with his boot. He looked pissed. And also had a stack of papers on him. It looked like someone forgot to get their morning coffee. “He’d have some serious explaining to do.”

There were a couple whispers across the table, a couple agents trying to understand the implications of what had just transpired. Jesse swore he saw some of his teammates starting to sweat. The band of Blackwatch agents saw Gabriel Reyes flash his most charming smile. The rascal could look good when he wanted to.

“Jackie, you’re backie. Not in blackie, though. I’m happy you’re openly talking about this, but didn’t we agree not to tell anyone? Also, hey, dinner at 8 in my room.” And then Gabe winked at Jack. Ew.

Jack sighed, crossing his arms, and not so subtly cueing to the assortment of medals pinned to the lapel of his cornflower blue coat. Subtle. He addressed Gabe. “Remember last night? Well, I’ve decided to become the possessive bastard you always wanted.” He gave an intimidating glance at everyone in the room. “How are you kids doing? I’m sure you’ve met me around. Though you probably didn’t think I’d be so involved with Gabe. Like, probably never expected in a million years that _ I _ was his soulmate. But yeah. That’s classified information, not a peep out of this room unless you want your life to being an even more visceral piece of hell.”

Someone gulped in anxiety. Someone sneered in ennui. But if Blackwatch owned anything, it was a pile of troublemakers. 

Now, Jesse hadn’t been part of Blackwatch too long, but it never took him that long to make friends. Genji--Jesse’s best friend and second best troublemaker in Blackwatch history--decided it was his turn to say something. (Jesse liked to think of himself as the best troublemaker, but that was an entirely different discussion). 

“And how are you going to do that exactly? Your boyfriend already has us running laps across the Mediterranean.” Genji sat proudly with his feet resting on the table, and Jack gave him a look of disgust.

Jack excused the moment of insubordination, and walked right past the table and into the arms of his lover. They shared a quick kiss after a moment of lingering in each others arms, much to the dismay of everyone else in the meeting room. And if Jack was good at anything, it was playing games with new recruits.

“What’s up, _ marido _ ? What makes my darling _ husband _so sad?” Gabe said, combing his hair through the tufts of Jack’s pale blond hair. It was thin, very much unlike his own, but he liked to try.

Jack laughed, trying to materialize every ounce of theatrics he had stored in his body for this very moment. “My sweet love, I just don’t know how I’m going to live if you don’t assign your soldiers 50 more pushups each every morning before breakfast. They’re not super soldiers like us, but we must make sure they are raised right. They’re like our kids, to me.” Jack lifted a leg off the floor, like he was swooning for real.

Groaning broke out around the table, and Jesse wasn’t sure if his teammates were groaning at the obviously satirical display of affection, or at the thought of actually being assigned even more pushups every morning.

It was Gabe’s turn to laugh. “Aw, Jack. We’re going to have a conversation later on why you’re so touchy today. Let me kiss you goodbye, though.” He planted another kiss on his husband’s nose before resuming business as per usual. Jack begrudgingly peeled himself off of his husband, but not without greeting their personal pet project. He smacked the stack of autopsies in front of Jesse and gave him a wink, before ruffling through the kid’s hair. 

Gabe cleared his throat, as the door shut. Radio silence. He looked at Genji, who was making paper triangle footballs to send flying across the room. Genji looked up at him and discarded the paper football into the recycling bin. Gabe swore, some of the people on this team had the attention span of gnats.

“Ok, amigxs. Before we get into the details of the upcoming mission abroad, Jack was serious about our relationship being confidential. Think of the absolute horror you would cause if the UN caught winding that I’m fucking their Strick Commander. Like, maybe it’s funny. Actually, that’s pretty fucking funny. Can I get a laugh track going here?”

Jesse was the first to start hooting and hollering. A round of applause followed. If Gabe getting laid meant a happy Gabe, who cared, really? Sure, it could cause an international scandal, but Jesse liked to take it a day at a time.

“Thanks, caballero. Ok. It might be the funniest thing ever, but let’s be serious. I don’t want to fire any of you, but if wind caught that I’m soulmates with Jack, that would probably raise some suspicions of nepotism. Now we all know that I’m a very accomplished man, with a great piece of ass too, but it could potentially mean getting the pink slip from the higher higher ups. And all of you would probably also be out of the job, since Blackwatch technically does not exist. Really. So please don’t, if you value your paycheck.

“Alright, anyways. Any questions before we begin reviewing these autopsy reports like a pack of lawyers from a video game?” Gabe asked.

Jesse McCree had a question. 

He partially raised his hand like a kid in a classroom, but then put it back down as he was contemplating if he should ask it at all, but then fully raised his hand as he thought ‘fuck it’.

“Hey, son. What’s bothering you? No, I don’t have any Nature Grain bars to feed you right now, please wait until after the meeting,” Gabe said. That aroused another short round of laughter from the people at the meeting.

Jesse chuckled too, because he had actually asked for a Nature Grain before in the middle of a mission. But he had a question to ask, and that was very important. “Hey, so, uhhhhh. I don’t know if this is relevant, or important enough, but what in tarnation’s a soulmate again?”

And Jesse kind of knew too, but only vaguely, like the word ‘esoteric’.

Of course, ‘esoteric’ is a word that is used to describe when something is only understood by a small set of people. Like you could call string theory ‘esoteric’, because who the fuck knows what string theory is? But it comes around often enough that people have heard of string theory, if only by name. You could even consider the word ‘esoteric’ esoteric. That was kind of funny. But Jesse was raised in the pit of the South with a single mother, before he found himself living a life of crime. He reconsidered how esoteric the word ‘soulmates’ was.

Like ‘esoteric’, ‘soulmates’ was not a word that came up when Jesse was robbing trains for a living, nor running from the police after a shooting with an opposing gang, nor in the middle of jewelry heists in the heart of Santa Fe. ‘Soulmates’ wasn’t necessary by any means of the word, _ that _ word, necessary. But maybe while he had only heard it a handful of times, with no definition to attach to the word, maybe everyone else had.

He felt like he was the odd duck out, and that was hard to do in a group of mother fucking misfits. Like, come on, Genji was basically a fucking cyborg. Gabe had gone through that freak of a soldier enhancement program that probably fucked with his biology in ways Jesse would never understand. Moira, their resident evil scientist, shot floating orbs out of her hands in the middle of combat. What the fuck was that about? Did she hone the essence of Orbeez for the inspiration behind her primary weapon? Jesse had some real mother fucking questions.

And a lot of the times, he asked them too.

But out of all of the unprofessional and obscure questions he had asked in his life, and even just in his short stay at Blackwatch where he could ask some pretty weird things, he had never asked a question that just about floored so many different people all at once. It’s like, he asked the question about soulmates, and the question took the cake. It took the cake and ran away with the spoon and like, eloped with the dish. And fucked the moon. Jesse didn’t think there was a reason for everyone to look so scandalized, though. 

Because questions didn’t take cakes, or run with spoons, or elope, or fuck.

Gabe had a face that betrayed emotions Jesse _ knew _ Gabe didn’t show often: remorse. Of course, ‘remorse’ kind of sounded like ‘Morrison’ and that was funny for 2 seconds. But it was downright scary. Jesse was the type of person that was always starting something. 

2 days ago, he had snuck into the mess hall at 3:30AM to steal a bag of doritos. Last week, he got captured on a mission and had to be rescued from an abandoned warehouse. Yesterday, he accidentally passed a stink bomb so bad, Gabe started coughing and moved their weekly recap meeting outside. And it was raining, too.

“Kid, did you ever take a health class before dropping out of school?” Gabe asked. 

Jesse didn’t know how to answer that. “Well, I know how my body works, thank you. Uh, but t’answer your question…. No. What’s that got t’do with soulmates?”

Gabe scrunched his lips, wondering how he could quickly remedy the situation. This is why they paid him the big bucks. Not the biggest bucks, but more than large enough bucks. “Ok, everyone settle down for a hot second. Jesse, I’m going to comm Angela for a textbook you can read. And you probably need some one-on-one lessons on other stuff--yeah, I know you know what sex is but what about STIs? That’s half the battle. How about taking a break this week and just getting through health class?”

“But boss--”

“Trust me, this is way more important.”

Gabe took out one of his comms, one that only a limited amount of people on base had access too. It was mostly used for emergencies, but other times, was used as a quick way to contact anyone on base. 

“Hey Angela! How are you? It’s Gabriel Reyes. I’m great and so is Jack-o’-Lantern thanks for asking. Do you have a this week to give some health lessons to one of our agents? I know you’re friends with our little Jesse. Great. Yeah? Perfect, please put that textbook on reserve. I’ll send Jesse down soon. Ok. Awesome. Over.” Gabe clipped the comm back into his belt. “Ok, anyone else skip health class?” 

The room, for once, was a resounding silence. Moira raised her hand.

“You didn’t take health class, O’deorain? Aren’t you a doctor?” Gabe asked.

“Very funny, commander. I was wondering why you did not just ask me to prepare some lessons and generic information for Jesse, and instead contacted Angela Zeigler.” She brought a hand up to her face, and rested her cheek on her long purple nails that looked like talons.

“Hey, doc. You’re coming with us on this mission. You can help out later if Jesse wants.” Gabe sighs and turns to Jesse. “Alright, cowboy. Sorry to do this to you, and don’t let this go to your head, but I can’t just let you go gallivanting into a foreign country with no knowledge about your own body parts. Trust me. Soulmates isn’t something to mess around with. I know you’re stressed about it. Consider yourself on hourly while you lax away while hitting the books this week, ok?”

Jesse sighed and pulled his cowboy hat off of his head. He was disappointed he wouldn’t be going to Japan, but there would definitely be more opportunities for travel in the future. Filling the cracks in his education wasn’t something that he would have completely expected out of Blackwatch. 

In fact, he was still reeling over getting fed 3 square meals a day. Being treated with any semblance or respect. Being valued not because he was probably the greatest sharpshooter of his generation, but for his personality and interests. Though playing old Hollywood flicks on movie night annoyed his teammates to no end, people stuck around and watched with him. And that was more valuable than ransacking a jewelry store. 

“You can stick around, but I suggest getting around early since the textbook Angela has for you is several hundreds of pages long.” Gabe grinned, trying to whisk away Jesse’s problems. 

Jesse replaced the hat on his head, and yawned as he stretched his arms above his head. “See y’all later, suckeroonies. Y’all hear that? I’m being paid to stay on base this week!”

More laughter from the gallery. Jesse got a few pats on the back. Genji flicked a paper football in his direction, and it smacked Jesse straight in the forehead.

“Text me” Genji said with a salute. Gabriel cleared his throat and held out his hand. 

Genji sighed as he was caught red handed, and surrendered his stash of paper footballs. A beat passed, and Gabriel remained focused on Genji. Genji took the paper footballs out of the pockets of his sweatpants and handed those over too.

That Genji.

Jesse snuck out the door as the team started talking about the autopsy reports, and was off to find Angela.

And not to say he wasn’t disappointed at not being able to travel with the rest of the team this time, but he tried to stick to the silver lining: gorging on breadsticks. Sometimes they were stale, but hit those babies with an unearthly and disgusting amount of ranch dressing, and Jesse would eat them like there was no tomorrow. Being paid also wasn’t half bad. And getting his question answered certainly wasn’t that bad.

He walked past the kitchen, one of the larger living rooms, and some of the barracks before taking an elevator up a few floors to the right area. Why wasn’t the med bay in the middle of the building?

Angela “Mercy” Zeigler was one of Overwatch’s doctors. She was at the top of her field at a young age, and a dear friend of Jesse’s. While the two could not have come from more different worlds, they bonded over some obscure things like miniature scented soaps. Besides, Jesse got injured so much on missions, they practically_ had _to become friends. Angela was huge on doctor patient confidentiality, but that didn’t stop her from chewing Jesse out every single time he came back needing a cast. 

If taking health classes was urgent enough for Gabe to kick him off of the latest mission, it had to be some level of important. How important could the whole soulmates thing _ be _? The elevator dinged and he followed the path he knew by heart to Angela’s office. He knocked on her door.

“Come in!” someone called from the other side.

He stepped inside. The examination room was just like he remembered it. White walls, with neat stacks of papers and books sitting in the corners by a computer desk. He was always impressed by how Angela worked, nothing seemed to get by her despite the clear lack of organization she subjected her belongings to. “Angie! Reckon you have a moment to spare for an old cowboy?” 

She looked up from the paper she was reading and instinctively scanned the length of his body. “What appears to be the problem, Jesse? Ah. You’re here so early. Health lessons?”

“Correcto-mundo.” 

She stifled a laugh and motioned to the examination table. “Feel free to take a seat, I’ll set up one of the projects. I have time to give you a quick lesson today, but otherwise believe you are just going to have to read a textbook and call me with any pertinent questions. We should also have a quick quiz at the end of the week just to see if you have retained any information. Where would you like to start?” 

Jesse started swinging his legs back and forth, and took his hat off to get comfortable. This would be the closest he’d ever gotten to college. “What the hell’s a soulmate, Angela?”

“Ah, yes. That is a fun topic. Let us begin.”

And that is how Jesse finds himself reading through what has got to be the densest book he’s ever laid his pretty brown eyes on. Reading this thing is like trying to breath in a chunky soup. There’s just too much going on for it to be possible, but some find a way to make it happen. Not many, but some. The sun, now past noon, has travelled lower into the sky during the course of the afternoon. He sits on a cliff by the Overwatch base in Gibraltar, after thoroughly being lectured this morning by Dr. Zeigler.

Jesse rolls over, book in hand, and takes a moment to look over the cliff he’s been sitting at the whole time. The sea beneath him crashes into the crook of the precipice, leaving sparkling moisture behind to glitter in the sun. Who needed to go to Japan for a mission anyways? He sighed.

He glanced back down at his textbook. Jesse swears he’s never read so much in his life.

_ The connection between soulmates has not yet been properly explained by the lengths of modern medicine _.

Great. Just what Angela said.

_ However, there is one documented process that occurs between a pair of soulmates. When an individual instigates skin-to-skin contact with their soulmate for the first time, their touch will leave a mark in the shape of the touch. For example, if a person accidentally bumps into their soulmate and the two touch shoulders, the initiator of the touch (IOT for short) will leave a shoulder shaped imprint on the receiver of the touch (ROT for short). Though the receiver may not see the mark form on their skin automatically, they will automatically feel a connection to their soulmate. However, the IOT will not feel anything short of some shoulder discomfort during this exchange. _

_ Individuals in Markwell’s case study report that a forming soulmate connection feels like being “stuck in a movie montage” (Markwell 40). The ROT will automatically reel through a selection of events from the IOT’s life, and thus, gaining a better understanding of their fated person _. 

Hm.

_ When someone first receives their soulmate marking, Markwell reports, “it is common to freeze up as the memories are being transferred from person to person” (Markwell 41). In order to seal the bond and make it permanent, the ROT must then instigate skin-to-skin contact with the original IOT. Otherwise, any received soulmate marks will slowly fade over time, though never completely disappear. _

_ Soulmates do not have to be romantic couples. Some opt for friendship, or other types of relationships. However, the majority of soulmates do end up spending the rest of their lives together in some form, due to the depth of their unique connection. _

_ It is possible for soulmates to never meet, because before initial skin-to-skin contact, there are currently no medical tools available that accurately predict the existence of a soulmate connection between two people. The next section is a photo gallery of soulmate marks _.

Ok. 

Some of these were pretty funny. There’s an image of someone with a neon purple pair of lips, indicating that their first contact with their soulmate was a kiss. It was so embarrassing Jesse laughed. On another page, someone just had an imprint of a dark yellow hand on their shoulder. That looked kind of cool. Next page.

_ Soulmate pairs with an incomplete set of soulmate marks are another story. Individuals that have received a soulmate marking, but whom are unable to reciprocate the marking on their respective soulmate, have a greater chance of developing anxiety or depression. Individuals studied have repeatedly reported feeling listless. This has not yet been thoroughly studied. Psychiatrists predict that this is due to a mixture of reasons. _

Scary. 

Jesse hoped that this would never happen to him. He hoped to god, the gods, the sky, the flowing rivers and the tall mountains. He hoped this would never happen. But fate had other plans for young Jesse McCree.


	2. Mission to Nowhere

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> time skip to recall. jack assigns the alaska mission. jesse hana and lucio go find some costumes at party city

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HEYYYYYYY im back. Cake is exactly who u think it is, the one guy we all know has a propensity for sweets. partycity gets a funny oc, based off a real friend of mine! i love her tremendously.
> 
> feel free to skip if ur going through this fic fast, they meet next chapter.

_ A handful of messy years later _.

Jack Morrison sits idly in one of the Gibraltar base’s meeting rooms. Between the fall of Overwatch, the operation once highly revered, and the temporary loss of his soulmate during the downfall of Swiss Headquarters--time had _ not _ been on his side. He sat and pondered, and came to the conclusion that time wasn’t a foe, though.

He had fresh scars on his face and he had reached the age where his soles would sometimes hurt for no apparent reason (or ‘raisin’, Jack liked to say). Maybe he was sappy because it was his birthday soon. But he was in command again, and that deserves a celebration.

He knew Overwatch was technically no longer supposed to be in operation, so leading the covert operation made him recall all of the conversations he had with his soulmate about “not feeling valued as a commander”. Jack would have to apologise next time, for now in the position himself, he understood the depth of unease someone might feel.

It was hard, because the work was unforgiving, and the world had much to fix. Jack thought about Overwatch’s current concerns: Talon essentially running an assassination business across the globe, and that particularly pesky Japanese gang family running amok with too much goddamn money. Where the hell did that money come from, anyways? Jack had questions.

He knew the Shimadas had particularly been active these past couple of months, but maybe because of the recent appearance of an informant. Jack, on behalf of Overwatch, had recently began receiving a steady stream of encrypted emails containing sensitive information about the family. These messages were from an anonymous source Winston dubbed “Cake”, for the emoji they used to sign the messages. And as much as Jack was grateful, decoding the messages themselves was sometimes a huge pain in the ass.

Cake changed their encryption method every so often and it would take both Winston and Athena, the AI, working in tandem to bust the locks. But breaking in was almost always worth it. Cake would message them when the Shimada clan was making an important or expensive trade deal with another large corporation, or on a crime spree. Sometimes the deals were out in the open, but sometimes they were behind closed doors.

Cake was also so accurate, in fact, that Jack and Winston had reason to believe Cake was high up on the Shimada food chain. Sometimes it felt like Cake knew certain things were going to happen before some of the lesser Shimada clan even knew they were going to happen. And that was highly suspicious. Cake was highly suspicious, and Jack wondered why the person behind the emoji decided to begin reaching out.

People didn’t give information away for free.

Once Cake came into the picture, Jack and Winston also started collecting information from other news channels about the Shimada clan. Apparently someone from the inside had been steadily taking out some of the big wigs recently. If Jack had to put money on it, Cake was probably involved in some way. He started tapping his foot under the table in the meeting room.

  


The reason he had called this meeting together today, to deploy a couple of agents for a recon mission, was because of another Cake message. 

Jack called the meeting earlier today on the speakerphone on case, and was currently waiting for people to trickle into one of the only available meeting rooms. Jack sighed. He didn’t know if the base would ever be completely habitable again, because years of disusage had left piles of debris and water logging in certain areas of the building.

_ Clink. Clink _.

Jack could hear Jesse McCree sauntering towards the room from the end of the hallway. Jack sighed and massaged his temples. That kid never stopped surprising him. Jesse had been such a rogue teenager, sometimes Jack regretted adopting him alongside Gabe. He wasn’t sure if he liked thinking about his soulmate anymore, but sometimes it was inevitable. 

Once in a conversation, Gabe assured him that the kid was “growing up into a fine young lad”. And for the most part, it had been true. But they had that conversation the day after a mission where Jesse had tripped and fallen 10 feet into a hidden bunker in Prague, so Jack had his suspicions at the time. He recalled everything he tried when attempting to raise Jesse right.

He taught Jesse learned complex reading and writing, but through editing official mission reports. Jack made sure Jesse gained experience communicating to groups of people and leading teams, but through mentoring younger cadets. He even made sure Jesse knew basic math, and once sent him away to a tutor in town close to Gibraltar’s base. There was no real way to learn algebra on base, sans bothering one of the scientists.

And Jesse had exceeded all of Jack’s expectations. The kid knew how to shoot, guide a small team through enemy territory, and derive math equations.

Jack marvelled the most at one of Jesse’s lesser known traits. The kid could be quiet when he wanted to be. He had spurs superglued to the back of his official uniform boots, but could walk without making a sound. And it was also a fact that Jesse had charisma shooting out of his ears. He wasn’t perfect, but Jack loved him anyways, as much as Gabe.

Jesse knocked before sauntering through the door with his cowboy boots and a pair of gray sweats. He looked absolutely ridiculous, but Jack wouldn’t ask him to change a thing. Soon followed Hana Song in similar loungewear, with a bedazzled vampire bunny t-shirt that said “bite me”. Bridgette, Genji, and Winston also came through the door and promptly took their seats so the meeting could begin. Lucio strolled in a second later, on a pair of heelys. 

Jack clapped his hands twice and the lights turned on.

“Alright. Hey, friends. Thanks for making it to another meeting, I’m surprised there are only so few of you on base. It’s the middle of July and it’s like we’re a restaurant short on teenage staff.” Har har. He thought that was funny, but no one else laughed at his joke. “Let’s get things rolling like a b movie on a film wheel.”

Hana appreciated the attempt, but Jack’s lame dad jokes needed a little more zing to land properly. “What are we here for, old man?” she asked.

Jack smiled and gave a low chuckle. 

“Great question, Hana Banana. Listen up, you louts. It looks like we received another encrypted message from our buddy Cake.”

Jesse scrunched his brows. “The person that’s on our ass about the Shimadas?”

Genji looked up from the scarf he was knitting. 

“Yes, our ‘buddy that’s on our ass about the Shimadas’. Jesse, they provide us with valuable information. It just sounds like you’re sore because we had to send you to camp out in the Patagonia mountains for…. What? A month?” Jack remembered that like it was yesterday.

Jesse frowned. “Was it really necessary to have me go a month in that place alone like some Brokeback Mountain wannabe? With just a tent and a zillion packs of MRE beans? Tracer and Mercy got to stay in town ‘til it was time for some action.”

The gallery laughed. Hana especially. She clearly remembered the day Jesse came back looking like he hadn't bathed at all in the last year--twigs in his hair included. He looked like a true mountain man. Tracer and Mercy, on the other hand, looked like they had just gotten out of their spa treatments, with fresh gel sets.

“Jesse McCree, you called for backup and then immediately shot that helicopter’s wings out of the sky, causing it to crash and burn in a motor explosion when it hit the ground. The fire burned through the drug cargo, which we were going to sequester for evidence.” Jack looked at his son in the eye. “And not that I wasn’t disappointed or anything, you did clear the objective which was just ‘stop the drug exchange’. But did you really have to cause a goddamn fire and expose the whole op?”

“People call me hot all the time for a reason,” Jesse rebutted.

Jack would have none of it. “Yeah, a hot _ head _, though. Remember? Screw those nuts and bolts a little tighter. We can’t risk getting caught this time, because the UN would be straight on our ass if they found out about this next mission.

“Ok, fam. Let’s talk about the objective. But first, yes, Hana did teach me the word fam last week. Isn’t it so cute? It’s short for family. That’s quite sweet. Ok. Now let’s talk about the dangerous arms dealing the Shimada clan is up to. This is Cake’s message.” Jack clicked a button on his holopad, and Cake’s text was projected onto a screen.

It said: Greetings. Next line: The Shimada gumi is soon sponsoring a small town’s Renaissance Faire, as a guise for loading their own agents into an area packed with civilians. Final line: a cake emoji, that looked like a vanilla cake with a strawberry on top.

Jack clicked another button on his holopad, and an image of mountains came up on screen. “Ok, so according to Cake, the Shimada clan is going to sponsor this faire. What a hell of a cover, if you ask me. I decided to just go Yahoo it and apparently this is just public information, the clan actually _ is _ sponsoring a faire. And then I contacted some of my personal information channels. 

“Apparently the clan wants to set up a heavy utility deal with an obscure team from Siberia, Russia and wants to borrow the small town’s sea ports for the trade. All the while civilians are engaged with the faire. Not bad. It’s weird, but not bad.”

Hana Song, one of Overwatch’s agents responsible for piloting a bunny-themed MEKA, chimed in. “Noin, how many Shimada agents are we talking about?”

Jack nodded, ignoring that Hana just called him an old man. “My estimate is that they can’t send more than a couple hundred over before they arouse suspicion, but we don’t know for sure. Funny you mention numbers because one of my informants also said that it’s highly likely that the clan leader will stop by.”

“Hanzo,” Genji said. “Interesting.”

Hanzo Shimada was Genji’s oldest brother. The family had made it their personal interest in grooming him to become the next heir, something that Hanzo had actually been looking forward too before he found out that half of the family business was dabbling in both murder and the black market. They had been close once, before they lost their mother. She had fallen ill too soon, much to the dismay of both siblings. Their father was too involved in mourning her to notice the sobbing of his own children. And once Hanzo took over, Genji was practically thrown out of the picture. Though that was a long time ago.

He thoroughly believed they could mend their relationship, the next time they met. Last time Genji saw Hanzo, it was during the anniversary of their ‘squabble’. Hanzo was shocked to see him, no longer fully human, but relieved that he was still alive. Genji offered Hanzo a position on the Overwatch roster, a way to seek redemption. But Hanzo had been too occupied in his own feelings. But sponsoring a Ren Faire… that was an interesting way of going about it.

Jesse partially raised his hand, but then lowered his hand as he contemplated what he was specifically going to say, and then fully raised his hand.

“Jesse. What’s up, kid?” Jack asked.

“I’m 37 and I’m still a kid?”

“You’re _ my _ kid, so yes. You’ll always be a kid, at least to me. State your question.”

Jesse sighed. “Where the hell is this little faire, anyways? Don’t tell me it’s somewhere obscure like Bloomington, Indiana.”

That got some laughter from around the table.

“Hey, leave Bloomington out of this. Though you’re right about it being obscure. You’re right but I refuse to let it go. I’m touchy. Now, for any of you looking to travel and see the world, get ready for this. The faire is in Anchorage, Alaska.”

“Anchorage, _ Alaska _?” Jesse asked. “Well, I don’t mean to be rude, Jack, but I’m pretty darn sure Alaska is the buckass of nowhere.”

Hana cut into the conversation. “I second the notion that Alaska is the ‘buckass’ of nowhere.”

Genji also hopped in. “I third. Motion, approved. Alaska will now henceforth be officially considered the ‘buckass’ of nowhere.”

Winston smiled at that one. That’s not how motions worked in this room, but he was all for such a fervent display of human enthusiasm. Now if only he had a jar of peanut butter to watch his teammates with...

Jack took out the papers to one of the folders he had brought along for the meeting, and passed out a stack of faire fliers that contained information regarding all of the events. “Well, not to break any hearts, but let’s all take a moment to read this.”

Jesse looked at the flier. The top of the flier contained a logo that read the “3 Barons Renaissance Faire”. Who were the barons? Jesse didn’t know, he was distracted by the horrendous attempt at graphic design. He mentally awarded the artist some leeway, because in all honesty, the logo looked like it was haphazardly made using Word Art and the Paint app, which were relics of a bygone era.

The flier also had a list of events, some of which were weirder than others. On the schedule were events like a “Kids & Adults Costume Contest” and a “Tomato Show”? However, one event did strike Jesse’s eye: “Sponsors-Only Masquerade Party” and in subscript, “media only allowed through special permission. please email janice.fellard at hotrocket.edu”. 

Jesse looked up from his flier, and gave Morrison an exceptionally evil side eye. He initially wanted to be assigned to the mission, but now he wasn’t so sure. “Jack, don’t tell me what I think you’re about to tell me.”

Winston stopped cleaning his rectangular glasses and saw Jesse’s extremely suspicious stare. He only brought out that stare when bad news was almost certain. And he was right this time, too. “Ah, yes. Allow me to interrupt the conversation here. Uh. Look, Jesse. I know you don’t like going out in public as your freelance reporter persona, let alone _ talking _ about your freelance reporter persona that you have painstakingly kept in order throughout the years--but I believe this is the best course of action.

“Do you remember last month when we left the Orca unattended and that tiny pack of raccoons made their way inside through a grate? Repairs set us back an obscene amount of money. Even with Torb and Brig working on it, instead of sending it to a shop. We thought it would be the easiest, because you already have a reporter persona with an up-to-date passport.” Winston punctuated his last sentence by pushing up his glasses. “Please cooperate with us.”

Jesse pouted and crossed his arms. And grumbled. He sighed and looked around the table, conceding that he _ was _ the only person with any decent reporter experience. He took the hat off of his head and placed it in the middle of the table. “Fine. But only if we change this mission’s official registration code to GAY instead of”--he looked at the mission summary paper stapled to the back of the Ren Faire flier--”SKE or whatever.” 

Jack looked at his son with some scrutiny. “You would take GAY away from me? After all I’ve done for you? I haggled that code off of someone before Overwatch’s fall.” And it hadn’t been easy. Jack and Gabe had been assigned to an outpost in the Bahamas, but had taken the chance to celebrate their honeymoon after privately declaring their nuptials.

Jesse didn’t care. He didn’t like being forced to take his writing persona out in the public for silly missions. Keeping up with the paperwork attached to a fake alias and editing articles for his blog part-time was more than enough. “Deal or no deal.”

“I object. Son, I punched someone for that code, in the middle of a bear-ridden forest.” Jack refused.

Winston refused to let this scrimmage get in the way of the mission, and typed something into his holopad. “Athena,'' he announced out loud, “can we assign all of our missions a unique serial number along with a registration code. Also please make the new serial column the new primary key for all table entries.”

Athena announced overhead: “Computing. One second please. Ok, done.”

“Perfect, thank you.” Winston turned to the two men sitting next to each other. “Ok, you two. Both missions can be GAY, registration codes no longer have to be unique, I just edited the way missions are stored in the database.”

Jesse groaned. Fine. “Whatever. I guess that’s ok...”

Jack smacked his own forehead with his hand. Had it truly been that easy all along?

Genji chimed in. “Wait, Athena. Can all mission registration codes be GAY from now on? What about BI, just b and i? What about SUPERGAY?”

Athena announced overhead: “My apologies, agent Genji. Access restricted. Also, mission registration codes are required to be 3 letters long. Please ask for permission from agent Soldier: 76 to continue.”

Genji looked expectantly over at Jack. Jack looked at Genji. Hana also looked at Jack. The entire table looked at Jack. Jack looked around and saw how expectant everyone was, but refused to concede. Jack looked back at Genji.

“Genji,” he said as politely as possible. “This is serious and we shouldn’t be messing with that database anyways. It carries a lot of sensitive data and it’s bad enough we just had to mess with the numbering system.”

“Aw, what?” Genji cried. Hana patted Genji on the back, to console him. Next time, she would back him up in the referendum. But this wasn’t the hill she wanted to die on, no matter how timely. Like calling Alaska the ‘buckass’ of nowhere. _ That _ she would surely defend with her life. 

Genji continued. “Jesse gets all the good stuff.”

“Well _ Jesse _ is a huge pain in the ass, and he’s lucky we picked him off the street. Just kidding kid, we love you. Anyways. But seriously, Jesse, you’re making moves here. This is an important part of the mission and we couldn’t do it without you. Ok? We only had the funds to black market 2 other passports and ID cards this time and we had to cut a corner,” Jack said.

Jesse nodded, agreeing that it was a smart move anyways. His alias, Joel Morricone, was often caught posting articles about local scenes on his blog, and had gained some traction in the last couple of years. His name was potentially recognizable, and having his blog made it a lot easier to get a press pass for the party. All he had to do was make his case to this Janice fellow via email. Which shouldn’t be too hard.

It wouldn’t be the worst thing he had done in the name of justice. “Ok, fine. Sorry for being so upset Jack. I get it. Fer the good of the team and all that,” Jesse said.

Jack gave Jesse a soft smile. “Thanks, cowboy.” He cleared his throat, and addressed the rest of the team. “Ok, everyone. Let’s move on to the next part of the mission. In order to be operating at a low profile, our goal will simply be to collect information. Recon. Jesse will be going undercover as Joel Morricone, an enthusiastic reporter looking to cover the Ren Faire, which is a great excuse to get into people’s faces about all the dirt happening. 

“Hana and Lucio, you two will be also going undercover, but as tourists in the area. Hana, you will be going as Ji-Su Ro, an art student looking to sketch the mountains and maybe even the ports Anchorage has. Lucio, you’re going to be going as Leigh Aughf, Ji-Su’s art school roommate that just so happened to come along.”

Hana snickered. “Leigh Aughf?”

Lucio gasped. “What happened, run out of naming juice?”

Jack looked at him dead in the eye. “Yes, actually. Sorry. I’m an old white man and I ran out of patience on babynames dot com. Next time I’ll get Winston to assign the names, we all know he’s better at it than I am.”

Jesse laughed. “Yeah, lay off, Lucio. You know Jack’s touchy.”

That got a decent laugh out of a few of the other team members present.

Lucio groaned. “Fine! But I'm not going to fake a German accent. Where’s my fake passport and Real ID?”

Jack slid the Hana and Lucio their new identifying documents across the table. “Mission takeoff is Friday. Jesse, Hana, and Lucio, please make your way to PartyCity by the end of the day to get costumes for the faire. All of you should attend Saturday morning just to scope out in a group, before Jesse goes solo for the rest of it. Jesse, after PartyCity, go to the tailor for a second costume and get something fancy for the masquerade party. Great.

“Meeting dismissed.”

_ Later that day _.

Jesse looked through a rack of costumes in the Tall section of PartyCity. Every time he found himself at PartyCity near their base in Gibraltar, he wondered why there was even one available. The omnic crisis came and went, but PartyCity remained strong. And was patronized by too many Overwatch agents looking for a quick costume over the years, if you asked him.

He tried to focus a little on finding a costume. He could probably make it through with one of these purple fairy costumes, but it didn’t seem quite right. It would be funny if he went dressed up as a cheap Mario, but he didn’t think anyone would get the reference since that game was kind of old now. He could wear a sexy dentist costume… but that would expose his metallic arm and Joel Morricone was not known for having a metallic arm. 

And if it was anything about Gibraltar’s very own PartyCity, it’s that it was home to one very peculiar employee. Esther was her name, and fish were her game.

Esther was a recently graduated marine biologist, but she spent a few hours each week helping others find the cheap costumes of their dreams. Her extra money would go towards gear she could wear when she was wrestling Mahi-Mahi in the Mediterranean sea. Such was the post-grad life.

She flagged Jesse McCree down, hoping to make another sale. “Hello, it’s our frequent buyer. How may I assist you in these troubling times?”

Jesse always got a kick out of seeing Esther. He remembered having conversations with her when she was still working on her thesis. ‘How’s the weather up there, man?’ ‘Any friend of Hana’s is a friend of mine.’ After post-grad, Esther shaved her head and started wearing bright-colored jackets, and that was something Jesse highly respected.

“Esther! What’s up?” Jesse said. “So, get this. I’m looking ‘round town for a costume that kind of gives off a pirate vibe, but also kind of a vaguely medieval vibe.”

Esther, with a brain that had a propensity towards greatness, immediately made a connection between the oddly specific request and something she saw earlier that week. “Allow me.”

She went around the back to the Employee’s Only area to collect what could have only been described as Ship Stowaway Chic. She came back and handed Jesse the garments. “Now, now. This is a billowy shirt that will make you look like the second forthcoming of Prince Eric from the Little Mermaid movie, and a pair of black reclaimed leather pants to attract all of the fine men in the land.” 

Jesse laughed at that one. “Thank you mighty kindly, Esther.” He was more of a jeans and t-shirt type of guy, but desperate times called for fashionably questionable measures. Ether gave him a 2-finger salute and went back to looking at photos of tilapia on her phone from behind the PartyCity checkout counter.

She was truly a character by every sense of the word, that word, character.

Jesse installed himself in one of the dressing rooms with a broken overhead light and put on his new costume. Esther wasn’t kidding when she said something about these pants attracting crowds, because they were tight enough to be tactical gear from Jesse’s Blackwatch days. Airtight on his ass. They were like yoga pants that were a size too small, but oddly enough, hugged all of the right places. Next, he put on the shirt and tucked it in. Nothing like a good old French tuck a la Tan France.

With a brown glove to conceal his prosthetic hand, the costume was exactly what it needed to be: utterly ridiculous. When Jesse thought of Renaissance faires, he thought of white people in middle eastern attire from the wrong era, and probably off of a racist tv program aimed at kids. He didn’t like messing with white people unaware of their own surroundings. But, yeah.

Anyways. He felt like a million bucks with the small ‘v’ cut into the shirt in the middle of the collar. But maybe if he got self conscious, he could modify it with a bobby pin. There was a knock at his door, which scared the shit out of him. But it was just Hana.

“Hey Jesse, are you in there? Come out and show us your costume.” Jesse swore he heard the shuffling of some fabric, like someone was wearing something with multiple layers. 

He stepped outside and was pleasantly surprised by Hana and Lucio already looking like they were about to take off to the faire on a pair of horses. 

Hana Song was wearing a pink and blue Tudor-inspired dress, with a hoop skirt. That was the thing Jesse heard just now. It had long sleeves, and Hana had put up her hair in braids. She nailed it. Lucio took a slightly different approach to the theme, and wore a jester costume with one of those silly pointed hats with bells, as well as the signature jester pointy shoes. Jesse thought that Lucio’s costume was a step away from screaming ‘elf’ because it was all green, but he refrained from insulting anyone within the confines of this holy establishment.

PartyCity deserves nothing but respect from its ungodly patrons. 

Hana was the first to comment. “Whoa! For an old man, you don’t look half bad. Did Esther take a chance and give you all of Prince Eric’s clothing?” She took a second to pull on Jesse’s left sleeve, which concealed his metallic arm up to the wrist. “Nice thinking with the long sleeve.”

Jesse nodded. “Yeah, I think so too, huh? Hey. I don’t think I’d call myself a prince though.”

“Jesse. ORZ. Haven’t you like, _ not _ met your soulmate yet? Listen, maybe you won’t save a mermaid, but I’m sure you’re to mean much more than you should to someone out there,” Hana said.

“Gee… thanks Hana.” Jesse pretended to be hurt. 

“Who knows, maybe you’ll meet your soulmate in Alaska?” Hana added.

“Hey, I thought Alaska was officially the ‘buckass’ of knowhere according to a vote during the meeting today. Three’s a notion,” Lucio said. 

Hana nodded. “Oh yeah. Ok, anyways, Jesse, if we fly all the way out to the ‘buckass’ of nowhere and you find your soulmate, I want bragging rights and a new car. And no, not like the toy car you gave me last time when I won a really obscure bet. A real car. Like I’m your oldest child going out of state to college and we’re part of an upper middle class family.” She was 19, but most importantly, a business woman. She seized all of her opportunities.

Jesse conceded to the deal, thinking that there was no way in hell that would happen. “Honestly, well slap me silly and call me chopped liver. I’ll get you a new car, and rights to choose the next movie when it’s my turn during movie night. If you lose, you have to make sure no one ever complains again ‘bout my Hollywood flicks.”

Hana narrowed her eyes. “I’ll make sure no one complains for two weeks.”

The two shook hands.

“GG.”

“Likewise, little missus.”

The crew took off their costumes and put them back in their plastic packaging, before tracking down Esther. They were pleasantly surprised when they found her still behind the checkout counter, just scrolling away and checking out those fish. She rung them up and gave them a 10% discount for old times sakes, and after hearing Jack still ran a budget frugal enough to scare off the Ebenezer Scrooge on Christmas.

The team of 3 loaded up into the truck Jesse had procured, and began driving along the coast for their next destination. Lucio rolled down the windows, so they could take in the smell of the salty sea air and get hit by the sun. It was a fine day outside, and pleasure driving off base was a luxury, afterall. Hana stuck to typing away at her phone, catching up on old Twitter mentions. Lucio turned on some sick beats. Jesse focused on the road.

And nothing else but the road.

Eventually, they made it to the tailor which Overwatch agents frequently patroned. Jesse decided to go in alone, not wanting to bother the kids with an hour of chatting and seamstresses retaking his measurements. He also wondered what tier of fancy costume he should ask for, but would see what the tailor recommended before making any requests. This was important. He rang the bell and someone came out to see him.

“Jesse, my favorite boy. What brings in you today?” said a woman that went by Lacey. She was wearing a t-shirt and jeans, but sometimes opted for high fashion. It didn’t matter when you were the head tailor. She made it work, though, Jesse didn’t lie. 

“Lacey cakes, the pleasure’s all mine. So, I’m looking for a fancy costume for a masquerade party. Got anything simple to take on and off?” he asked.

She took one look at him, and was off to find the garments for his costume. A student retook Jesse’s measurements and cross-checked them with his file. Little to no changes. Excellent. 

Jesse liked to believe he was one of the tailor’s favorite customers because he spent so much Overwatch money here for custom orders, but it was probably because he liked to keep fit and his form didn’t change too much from month to month. It made getting new costumes that much easier, and when you were a high in demand tailor, that meant something.

Lacey came back in with a pile of clothing, and a headband. Jesse took a good look at it, and it kind of appeared to be a little thing with an assortment of golden spray painted zipties. He put it on, and realized what the costume was.

“For my young man that shines as bright as the sun when the clock strikes noon, how would you feel about masquerading as the very sun that illuminates our world?” The tailor hands him a white button up shirt with scalloped edges instead of the usual straight ones. And then she handed him a black cape. And a pair of dark red slacks. 

This would do.

This would do just fine.

“You have a better eye than me, as always, Lacey. I know you don’t like adding extra pieces to costumes, but do you happen to have a mask of sorts to go along with it? Like I don’t know, uh. Something white?” Jesse asked. The tailor snapped her fingers and one of the attendants came over and handed Jesse a white mask that covered his eyes, but with a nose that looked like it was inspired by a humming bird photograph. 

“Something to make you look regal.”

Check-eroonie. That would also do great. 

“It’s perfect. My stars, you ladies do a mighty good job.”

If anyone tried to recognize him in this outfit, they wouldn’t stand a chance. RIP to Jesse McCree, but Joel Morricone was different. (And thank the sky for that, because Jesse had a bounty on his head the size of Texas).

He paid for the items of clothing, not bothering to check the prices because Jack be damned, and made a mental note to stick those puppies in his suitcase to Anchorage before he forgot about needing a second costume.

The buckass of nowhere. 

Jack had actually texted the #general chat channel that no, Anchorage was _ not _ the buckass of nowhere, it was like the New York of Alaska. 40% of the state’s population lived there.

Once Jesse heard that, he understood why the Shimada clan had picked such an obscure location. It was weird enough not to draw any public attention, but useful enough for some underground trading. And the concentration of civilian life made it hard for any real outside intervention. 

Before exiting the store, he thought about Hana one last time.

He hoped she wouldn’t be disappointed when she lost the bet and didn’t get a new car. Not that it would really mess with his finances that much.

But because it meant she would also win bragging rights. And those weren’t as much of a piece of cake to deal with.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next time: electric boogaloo. i think we'll finally get to meet hanners and start off the ~romance~ and more nonsense from hana


	3. Oh Sh*t

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> they finally meet in the most unexpected of places

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok yall congrats we're finally kicking off the gay drama. anchorage alaska sweeties im sorry im doing this to all of u in all honesty. godspeed
> 
> also this is a #freehongkong account 🤷

Jesse McCree sneezes as the sun hits his face, and curses out his ancestors for the weak “stepping into the sunlight” genes he must have somehow inherited. It was a fine day, out in the middle of Anchorage. Well, it was more like on the outskirts of Anchorage. The faire was located off the side of an obscure road, situated in a clearing that was the last drop of civilization before coming into contact with the state’s natural parks.

To be fair (haha), there were more humans up North East. But it still felt like the almost wilderness, at least to Jesse. Wherever he roamed, he felt like he was being followed by Alaska’s larger than life mountains. They were always within eyeshot, tall and looming. And they were beautiful too, but not as beautiful as Anchorage’s body of water.

That was a highly subjective opinion, though. Maybe he was just a sucker for deep blue. Hana would say he was wrong and say he was wrong again.

But to get back to the Faire, it had a ridiculous allotment of medieval themed vendors. Of course, most of the vendors were normal. There was a vendor that sold hand-crafted wooden bowls, another that exclusively sold fried halibut (a fish that tasted pretty damn fine, compliments to the chef). And Jesse had seen this sign propped open in front of a vendor’s tent: “Ye Olde MASSAGE. $5=5 minutes of Bliss…. Or TORTURE?”

Needless to say, that was one for the books. It scared him shitless. Hana went in and got her shoulders rolled, though, because she feared no one. Absolutely no one.

He yawned and looked around the premises, half looking for trouble, and spotted a man clearing out a game of darts. Well, sort of. The man had a high topknot, rows of piercings on his ears, and wore a stylish blue coat. And Jesse was almost jealous that the man could make such garish pieces of clothing look so damn fine, except he remembered that he himself intentionally dressed up like a Eastwood wannabe for work. Jesse wouldn’t have though the scene of any importance, but then tuned into the man’s next shot. 

Jesse had been to many a bar in his life, had experienced a whole lot of darts, but none too much of this move.

The large target board had a single dart on it: smack in the middle of the bullseye. Not bad. But then Jesse saw the man in a topknot shoot again. The man so accurately threw his dart, and with enough power too, that it knocked the old one off the board. That was incredibly peculiar, because most times when people tried to do that trick with the darts, but of them fell clean off.

_ Thwip _ .

Jesse took a step closer, and saw the man shoot again. Pretty damn good shot, if he did say so himself. The man again knocked the old dart off the board, replacing it with a new one. And then he went again to do the same thing for a third time. The round ended and the man sighed, shuffling his weight between both legs, and looked at the attendant dressed like a squire.

“Am I allowed to advance in Prize Tier now? Oh, my mistake. I know your silly Faire has an entire section dedicated to highly suggested lingo. One moment, please.” The sharpshooter took out a pamphlet, which Jesse recognized as the one handed to all Ren Faire attendees. But he didn’t recall the section of highly suggested lingo. “ _ Doth _ I advance in Prize Tier for……  _ mine own _ accuracy?”

The squire looks at him, and narrows his eyes a little. Like he wanted to say are you kidding me. “Sorry brah, you need to pay for another round,” he says instead, with the most California boy accent possible. He was done with whatever shenanigans the man in the topknot had been up to. The squire looks up and spots Jesse just steps away. “Hey, dude. Want to play a game of Ye Olde Darts or whatever?”

And so Jesse found himself caught in a polite game of darts because he didn’t want to say know. Jesse walked up to the podium and tried to tip his hat to both of the men, but then realized that he had left his hat at home. It was his signature hat, with a couple of bullet holes, and was way too recognizable for comfort. Hats off for Joel Morricone. He stepped up to the podium, right alongside the game’s current resident sharpshooter, and offered to pay the next round. It was a little facetious of him, but that never stopped him none.

“I see thee hasn’t nay regards for”--the sharpshooter looks down at the pamphlet again, but then turns his attention to the game’s attendant--”is it thy or thine? Is there a difference?” 

The squire looks at him in silence, and then places 3 darts in front of each of his visiting customers. He probably either didn’t know, or didn’t care. Jesse guessed that the squire didn’t care.

Sharpshooter looks at Jesse. “I see thee hasn’t nay regards for thy surroundings. To whom do I owe the pleasure, knave?”

Jesse McCree ran a couple fingers through his hair. If it was something that recon missions had taught him, it was charm everyone and their mother’s socks. It never hurt none to have one too many friends. Until it did, of course. He gave his best smoulder. “Joel Morricone, at your service, sweet peach.” He considered his next move, and decided to edge on flirtatious. “And to whom do  _ I  _ owe the pleasure?”

Sharpshooter scanned Jesse from head to toe, perhaps checking him out, but most likely checking for any concealed weapons. Or maybe both. He replied with a pleasantly neutral expression, and adjusted his white gloves in preparation for the match. “Tanaka Haruto. Just Haruto, please.”

“Bros.... ok, you know what, I’m gonna let this go. Can we start the match already?” The attendant was losing his patience, understandably. He was underpaid and wasn’t going to spend a moment more than necessary witness two adult men try and intimidate each other. He deserved a raise just for watching Joel try his best hand at awkward flirting.

Now, before Jesse got any ideas about showing off, there was a reason why he was a popular choice for recon missions. There was no need to draw any attention to himself, even during moments that seemed like they didn’t matter, so he played it smart. Or at least tried to, before he reached deep inside himself and said ‘fuck it’. 

The two shot their first shots at the same target.

Haruto’s dart predictably landed smack in the center. Jesse was playing a different game altogether, not wanting to reveal his upper hand so soon. He aimed for the perimeter of the target, and landed so close to the edge that it almost didn’t land. Almost. He had years of practice under his belt for that one. His opponent gave him a laugh.

“Thou appears in over thy head, Princey.”

“Just need a second to warm up, is all.”

  
  


Jesse wasn’t going to give up so soon, and certainly not after being taunted so. But he decided it was time to ramp it up just a little, to see what his opponent would say. Recon missions didn’t mean he couldn’t have fun, afterall.

The two shot again. 

Haruto replaced his previous dart at the center of the board. This time, Jesse aimed at the circle just outside the bullseye, and landed where he wanted to land. Again. Jesse shrugged, feigning ignorance. That gained him a smirk from his opponent.

The two shot for the third and final time. 

This time was different though, because Jesse was done playing games. He waited for Haruto to make the first move, and as soon as the sucker sent his dart flying, Jesse countered it with his own. The two collided midair with a large clink, and then fell to the ground before reaching the target at all this time.

The attendant sighed as he bent over and started clearing the area of any other miscellaneous darts. He thought, might as well get this shit over with.

That marked the end of the game.

Haruto had changed his neutral expression to one of surprise. He tapped his fingers along the counter, and placed a hand on his hip. “You… you hit me on purpose,” he said. He narrowed his eyes at Jesse and flickered his gaze between Jesse’s face and his hand. “In midair. Why?”

Jesse heard the defensiveness in Haruto’s voice and laughed in mirth. “For fun. Didst we calleth quits on the satirical Shakespeare so soon?”

“You’re even worse than me”--Haruto looked over to the attendant--”Is it Sirrah? Do you Americans say Sirrah?” The attendant shrugged his shoulders, and Haruto sighed. The squire was utterly useless in all of the wrong ways. Haruto looked back at Jesse. “You are even worse than me,  _ sirrah _ , if we were to critique poorly concocted medieval accents.”

“Sirrahs, dudes. Let’s get this thing over with. Haruto, man, I’ll give you a Mega Tier prize because you just spent $50 on darts or whatever. Joel, my buddy, you gotta pay for another round if you want anything, uh. One of the Baby Tier prizes.” The attendant points to a milk crate stashed in a corner of the tent, which was filled with miniature plastic snakes and neon colored dinosaur figurines. 

It was funny at best, but Haruto laughed like it was the greatest thing in the world. It was so funny, he was partially reduced to tiers. Jesse didn’t think it was that funny, of course. Plastic snakes and dinosaurs were some of the most noble creatures known to human kind, obviously.

Haruto settles down and points to a large dragon, blue with a golden underside. “My attendant,” he says between chuckles, “I will take your largest dragon as my bounty.”

“Whatever man.” The attendant makes motions to remove the dragon, only for the stuffed animal to get stuck twice on the hook keeping it attached to the sealing. He pulled on it and it rattled a plank of wood making up the frame of the ceiling. Today was going to be such a long day, and it wasn’t even lunch yet.

The attendant eventually figures out how to take it down, and hands it over to Haruto, who is practically beaming. “Make sure to put it away, I’m not legally obliged to replace it if you get it muddy or something. I heard it’s gonna rain this afternoon.”

Haruto spares the attendant a nod.

And this is the part where Jesse starts to feel something else. Like there is something uniquely attractive about Haruto, in ways that he cannot even begin to describe. Maybe it’s because the man has his toned arms against the rather comically large stuffed animal. Or maybe because spending 5 minutes of his life playing darts with a stranger felt easy. Maybe it was just the damn darts. Whatever it was, it felt kind of ridiculous, though. 

And unreal. Jesse McCree was a man that only operated under calculated moves during recon missions. And a recon mission this was. 

Haruto looks over, catching Jesse in revere. “Sad you do not also have a large stuffed animal that probably will not fit into the truck of your convertible? I would be daring and give you mine, but I just spent a good chunk of money (and time) winning this thing.”

Jesse snaps out of it, and shakes his head. “No, no. Uh, just thinking about whether spending an extra $5 is worth it for a plastic reptile.”

Haruto ponders the situation, sets his prize on the counter, and extends his hand. “Alloweth my thy hand ungloved.”

“Excuse me?”

“Joel, give me your right hand.”

…

Jesse relinquishes his right hand. 

Haruto places a small peck on the back of Jesse’s right hand. “Consider this a consolation prize for losing so poorly, my ‘sweet peach’. Farewell.” 

Now as foreshadowed by almost every event so far, Jesse stands there, frozen in space-time. He watches Haruto walk away but is powerless to stop him from leaving. Such is poorly concocted fate. Now, there aren’t too many times in his life where Jesse could say he truly felt powerless, but this was one of them. He was powerless because he was frozen. And he was frozen, because he was reeling through a montage of neatly packaged soulmate memories. 

Jesse was suddenly in Japan, during the summer. He was playing with a young boy in traditional garments that looked oddly familiar. He couldn’t put his finger on it. They were playing with a stuffed toy that looked like a cross between a green octopus and a dumpling. Jesse wracked his brain trying to place what it was called. Ah. A pachimari. And then he feels himself skip through time, probably to adolescence. He is sitting at a meeting in the exact place his soulmate once sat, in a room full of older people.

They were ferociously arguing amongst each other, but Jesse’s soulmate remained calm. And then there was another time skip. Jesse found himself on a beach alone, his face wet with tears. He looked at the sea and it glistened back to him as the sun set beyond the horizon. And then Jesse saw himself take a shot with a bow. And that was really fucking weird, but then he remembered he wasn’t viewing the world through his own perspective at the moment.

By the time Jesse came to himself, his soulmate was nowhere to be found. He felt a surge of warmth in his right hand, and saw the moment his soulmate’s mark came into existence. It was a primary blue kiss, and Jesse realized that for the rest of his life, everyone would ask him if he had forgotten to remove the lipstick off his hands. 

Oh  _ shit _ .

“Oh hey. Congrats? Dude, soulmarks only happen once. I’ll give you a free Baby Tier snake if you want one. On the house, bro, if you don’t tell my mom. Or my boss. They’re the same person, so just avoid any older women that look like me and you’ll be ok. Of course, I lost my dad when I was younger but if you see any older men look like me as well, avoid them too.”

Jesse sideeyed the dart game’s attendant, and then looked at his new soulmark, and then looked at the attendant again, and then looked at the crate of plastic snakes that looked like they came from a 100-pack at the nearest dollar store. And then he measured his options. His stupid options with no soulmate. Whatever. “Fine. I’ll take one of those scrawny looking orange ones.”

Jesse muttered his thanks as he shoved the snake down the side of his pant’s elastic waistband, much like he saw people do phones at yoga class. He sought out to find Hana at the nearest ice cream stand. He had so many questions at the moment. So many. But he didn’t know who to ask, or when to ask, if he would ever have answers.

He had just met his soulmate on a mission to Alaska and probably would have a hell of a time catching him again. Unless they were loading up their prize in the parking lot right now. Jesse gave up trying to find his teammates and hightailed it to the exit, and was immediately waylaid by a Faire staff member trying to stamp his hand for “free reentry.” He saw his target from the corner of his eye, shutting his trunk closed and getting into the driver’s seat of his car.

Jesse politely snagged his hand back from the staff member, and started sprinting to the parking lot like his life depended on it. Curses. 

“Wait!” he yelled as he tripped on a patch of particularly dry dirt, and regained his balance. He saw the car drive off onto the road, and leave. Jesse debated getting in the team’s rented truck and chasing him down the highway, but voted against it. He was too professional to abandon mission, even for something so personally important. This time. He hunched over and smashed his forehead against his prosthetic hand. 

He felt stupid. 

And then he remembered the textbook passage he was mandated to read at 17. The one about unreciprocated soulmate marks. And then he recalled every Hollywood movie he had ever seen where the woman was stood up at a date. 

Heterosexuals.

Jesse got back up the second he heard footsteps approaching, and looked over his shoulder to see Hana and Lucio sprinting his way with a couple of ice cream cones.

“Joel! There you are! We saw you leave, what happened?” Hana instinctively surveilled the parking lot for any suspicious activity, but everyone else was enjoying the Ren Faire. They were completely alone together in that god forsaken parking lot, which by the way, was just a large patch of dirt. It would make a great place for a seance.

Jesse showed them the back of his right hand, and indignantly pointed at it. “This happened. Some rando at the fair kissed my hand and now I’m at greater risk for depression and anxiety because I didn’t touch him back. Do you know I’ve already had both depression  _ and _ anxiety when I was younger? I really don’t appreciate this, one lick.”

That made Lucio almost drop his ice cream cone. He gave the second one he was holding (strawberry) over to Jesse, and Jesse took one look at it before biting half of the first scoop off. 

“Hey, man. Chill out. So your soulmate took off, huh? He sounds like a major free spirit, if you ask me. Hey. Jesse, stop devouring that poor cone for a hot second. At least you two, uhhhh, set your own agendas?” Lucio said.

Hana snickered at that one. Jesse looked at him, visibly upset and about to cry. “Be kind, kids.”

“Ok, ok, ok.” Hana put her hands up in the air, but not because she just didn’t care. “Look. Leigh and I have to go change into our tourist outfits before heading off to sketch the docks. But about your mystery man… something tells me that if you’re some rando that went out of his way to visit a Ren Faire on a Saturday, he’s probably going to come back on Sunday. That’s my official Ji-Su Hunch™. Or, actually. You know what you could do?”

Jesse looked at her. “What’s your official Ji-Su Advice?”

“Visit the psychic. There’s a vendors table near that massage place we saw earlier,” Hana said.

Lucio chimed in. “I actually went in earlier and she guessed that I do music for a living, which is partially true. Her tarot cards read me to filth, though. 10/10 would recommend getting told off by her deck of cards.”

Jesse took another bite out of his cone, him and his big mouth. “I don’t know if I reckon I should spend company money on a psychic.”

“Just go, you big oaf,” Hana says.

Jesse shoves the rest of his cone in his mouth, and takes his second glove out of his pocket. He puts it on his right hand, not wanting to jeopardy the integrity of his newly minted soulmark. “Fine, but only ‘cause I’m feeling mighty emotionally vulnerable just about now. Y’all kids better scram to those docks. And text me if you see anyone walking ‘round with a giant dragon plushie.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we're going to pretend widowmaker doesnt have a blue kiss spray and move on LMAO. next time: ana amari????
> 
> (youtuber voice) like comment subscribe 4 more funny-ish updates


	4. Don't Sass Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> jesse gets his fortune read, and trails off to interview a shady employee

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow we're almost at 20k. isn't that great for my word count? thank u all for holding on. we're almost at the juicy stuff!

Jesse trudges through the entrance of the Ren Faire again, only to be greeted by the very same people that welcomed him into the shire just a couple of hours ago. One of the people wore a cheap dragon pajama onesie, which could have served as a decent last minute costume by itself. However, the man was heavily overshadowed by his coworker. The woman had clearly spent hours upon hours perfecting the armor to her green knight costume, as marked by the costume contest ribbon on her chest.

First place.

The woman asks Jesse if he has a stamp to reenter for free, and though Jesse technically did, he instead decided to repay the entrance fee. According to Faire policy. He could make an argument to Jack about the cost of an extra entrance ticket, but decided against that because reimbursement forms were tedious. And dumb. Some things never changed. He fished out his personal wallet from one of his sleeves, and paid the fine people their dues. 

The psychic’s tent wasn’t too far off. 

They had actually passed it earlier, before Hana and Lucio just left. But something about it told Jesse that, like the underground yakuza activity, it was also something new to the Faire this year. For one, it took up two vendor spaces and looked like it had its own receptionist. That was highly suspicious. And the tent was a pitch black. He wondered who Captain Penelope of the Fortune Teller’s Guild truly was behind the curated mystique. 

Captain Penelope’s receptionist greeted him from behind her desk, and led him to a room in the back. It was dimly lit, and the room smelled like a mixture of scents. Jesse mostly pulled essential oils, and mostly bergamot. It was like walking into a Hollister at the local mall, a clothing store brand that sold expensive jeans to teenagers with affluent parents, except not half as tacky. In his opinion. Essential oils were leagues ahead of that cheap perfume stuff targeted at teens these days.

He hears a chime, and a light from the ceiling lit turns on, which illuminates the table and two chairs situated in the middle of the room. Jesse feels like he’s about to be interrogated. Like he’s in a lick of danger. But all of his feelings of anxiety disappear when he lays his eyes on ‘Captain Penelope’.

Ana Amari, a once well revered Overwatch agent, travelled the world in hopes of restoring justice to those who need it most. That being said, she wouldn’t have anticipated disguising herself as a pirate for the sake of collecting information. She had recently heard rumors of a man in a black coat plaguing obscure towns, and that he had recently been spotted in the area. A man by the name of Reaper.

Of course, waiting for information to arrive at her doorstep was always the most tedious process. If it was one thing Ana knew how to do, it was improvised. And luck struck when the Ren Faire’s actual psychic cancelled. Upon hearing that bit of news, she had purchased a Tarot card deck after a bar fight. And then she memorized the accompanying pamphlet, which contained information on suits and spreads. And now she was here, essentially scamming these poor civilians of their well-earned coin. 

A lot of Alaska’s population earned their wages as factory workers, and even lived in company housing. But as recompense, she would make sure to contribute some charitable donations once the Faire was over. No need to carry around more coin than necessary. And these people deserved a boost to their otherwise pathetic tourism economy.

She sipped her tea. She didn’t believe in magic, but it must have worked in strange ways, because here she was reunited with Jesse McCree. He was once like a son to her, and still like a son to her. But they had not met in a while, ever since Overwatch’s downfall.

“Ana. Fancy meeting you here.” Jesse took a seat opposite to her. “Or should I say Captain Penelope of the Fortune Teller’s Guild. Funny, didn’t think you’d turn a guild of all places for a hit job.”

“Hush, now, my boy. What are you doing here? Seeing you in the middle of nowhere tells me you are most likely on a mission. And meeting with you is always welcomed, but this was not my intention.” Ana caught a glimpse at Jesse fidgeting with his hand. “And  _ what _ pray tell is this? Tell me, young one, don’t tell me you have lost your second hand to the perils of battle.”

“No, uh.” Jesse slicked back his hair and almost broke out into a cold sweat. He removed the glove from his right hand, revealing his recently minted soulmate mark. “Met my soulmate. He, uh. Ran away before I could catch ‘em.”

Ana looked at his hand, having never seen a soulmark so peculiar. Nor one so embarrassing. Jesse would surely get teased because it definitely appeared like a smear of makeup. Except it was quite permanent. It would be on his body forever, like a nasty tattoo. “Well, it sounds like he is a rather bold man, much like yourself.”

Jesse put his glove back on. “Tell me about it.”

Ana Amari, otherwise known to the world as Captain Penelope, takes a deck of ornate cards out of her pocket. They are decorated purple, with golden stars that glisten in the harsh overhead light. “That is a spectacular idea, lad. Perhaps I shall tell you about it. Now, since you have so kindly paid my fee, allow me to read to you from my script.”

She shuffles them, crosses them, and folds them again. Ana lays out all of the cards across the table, in one fellow swoop. She closes her eyes, gives one deep breath, and thumps both of her hands down on the table. The overhead light turns red. “My boy, do please pick 3 cards. You may choose in any order you wish, but choose the ones that attract you most.”

Jesse scratches his head, looking ever so sharply at the cards laid out before him. They almost looked sinister in the light, like they had a personality of their own. Jesse waited a beat before deciding to just go for it. He chose a card close to the left edge of the table, one askew of the center, and one slightly to the right of center. Ana hovered her hands over the selected cards, before sliding them to the middle of the table.

She shuffled her deck again, and put it away.

The overhead turned a bright yellow, even though Jesse swore he didn’t see Ana press any buttons. Maybe that was what the receptionist was for, but he shrugged and quit bothering to break the illusion.

Ana lifted her hands up to the sky, and clapped twice. She flipped the leftmost card on the table.

It was the Wheel of Fortune. The card depicted a circle that resembled some sort of clock among the clouds, and a fox.

An audio player started going off from somewhere, but Jesse didn’t know where the sound was coming from. It was of someone playing a somber tune on the lute. Don’t ask how he knew that.

“Ah, yes. The Wheel of Fortune. My boy, the Wheel denotes fate and changes that are beyond our control. Tell me. Has anything transpired today that has been atypical? Anything that you didn’t expect to happen?” Ana asks. She takes another sip of her tea.

Jesse couldn’t believe he was actually doing this. He wasn’t that much of a believer horoscopes ever since one told him he was a failure. Yee Ouch. “Yeah, uh. Do you know that dingy darts game over at the other side of the Faire? The squire guy saw me and asked me over. And then I played a game of darts with this rando. That was weird. I guess uh, people don’t usually approach me about that kind of stuff? I’m charming and all, but, yeah. Not a games type of guy.”

Ana smirked. “Perhaps it is because you have shaved your beard for this trip you have taken to the end of the Earth. Or perhaps it was just a coincidence. Something tells me you are not here just as a pleasureseeker. You are not yourself today, correct?”

Jesse nodded. Of course, Ana Amari was a smart woman and could guess as much. “Well, ‘course I am… Joel today. Look, I’m him a solid part of the time. Can’t always be myself when you’re on the run.”

“But today made all of the difference, it sounds like.” 

Ana flips over the second and middle card. 

It was the Lovers. 

There are two people on it, holding hands. They are accompanied by an apple, a snake, a garden, and a flying bird.

Ana gasped, theatrically. “The Lovers. This card denotes a partnership, or a relationship. Which I believe would adequately describe you and your soulmate. Tell me, what did you think of them. How did you meet?”

Jesse grumbled. “Darts game. Awful romantic location, isn’t it? We actually played a game together, he was a pretty mighty fine shot.”

“Well, well. It sounds like between the running away and the shooting, this man sounds much like yourself.”

“Hey now”--

“Something tells me this was intended by fate, including your separation.”

Ana flipped the final card.

It was the Seven of Cups, but unlike the other cards, it was flipped upside down.

Ana clapped twice, and the music turned off. She looked serious this time. “My boy, do you know what this card signifies? My, my. The Seven of Cups is typically an excellent card to receive from the depths of my deck. When upright, the Seven of Cups signifies chasing purpose or being able to succeed in the future. It is about making the right choices. However, upside down, this card is rather malicious. Dubious. It represents the lack of purpose, obscurity, and something hidden just beyond your reach. Tell me, what happened after he kissed your hand?” 

Jesse scratched his hand. Spooky. “Uh. I went through that memory transfer thing and kind of just stood there. It was just like going through a movie montage, ‘cept the scenes didn’t make any coherent sense. They painted a picture, but I reckon much is missing from the story.”

Ana nodded, as if she completely understood. “Of course, let us take a look at the cards. The Wheel: there was something of chance that happened today. The Lovers: you met your soulmate, and from the sounds of it, you two make a pair. The Seven of Cups reversed: something took him away from you. 

“It looks like while you two may be eventually destined for each other, something larger than either of you has gotten in the way. Perhaps he is not who you think he is, much as he shouldn’t trust your own cover. Tell me, my boy, do you have any reason to believe he is involved in any ‘shady business’?”

Jesse wondered that himself. “Well, he might be here for some ‘business’ I was sent here to take care of.”

“Ah ha! Then it appears you two are much more of a pair than either of you know. If he truly is, much like yourself then, isn’t it? Always caught up in some sort of trouble.” Ana smirked, and another bell went off. It was extremely disorienting. “Well, it appears our time together has come to a brisk close.”

Closing off sessions was the thing Ana truly hated, because she hadn’t yet mastered how to say goodbye. Which was kind of ironic, all things considering.

She tapped Jesse’s shoulder, and suddenly the overhead lights went back to a normal white. Jesse had no idea how she was controlling the lights the way she was. 

“Remember, my boy, do not reveal the cards hidden up your sleeve until it is time, and think twice before stepping into the unknown. The future is murky. Lest you jump into a pit of”--Ana saw the plastic toy stuck around the elastic waist of Jesse’s pants--”venomous creatures. Our time together has now concluded, but may our spirits ever be so intertwined. Farewell. And do feel free to give Karen, my receptionist, a tip. I give her a cut of my profits but she deserves more than I can provide, anyway. Good luck, habibi.”

Jesse thanked her for her time, and wondered about that. For surely fate wasn’t real, but he had chosen those cards himself. Maybe it was the fried halibut or the ice cream catching up to him, but that seemed like too much of a coincidence. And being sent to Ana Amari of all people. He would have to tell Jack about the pirate costume later, she looked rather silly. But that sash over her eye was exquisitely convincing. Probably because it was real, though.

Maybe it was time to interview people.

He sighed and moved along.

What was so funny about this 3 Baron’s Renaissance Faire, was that it had a lot of lore behind it. Like, it wasn’t just a weird obscure get together where white people could wear funny costumes tucked into the back of their closets without judgment once a year. On a day that wasn’t Halloween. Though it kind of was.

Which probably contributed to the Faire’s success over the years. Of course, the Faire’s location had moved from place to place over time, before they had settled on this particular location off the side of a road. But Hillshire legend says that a great warrior of some kind fought off some sort of evil monster. (Jesse thought it was hilarious how vague that was). And when the warrior went to defeat the monster, he (the warrior was explicitly a ‘he’ though) took along 3 knights, before conquering his foe and disappearing forever. 

The 3 Baron’s Faire celebrates the victory, where the barons clash with each other every year to gain control over a relic of the warrior. That is to say, that the Faire was split up into 3 main areas, one for each Baron. These areas were Red, Green, and Blue. Attendees are heavily encouraged to compete in duels, achieve noble tasks, and participate in entertainment for these coin vouchers. Attendees can then vote for their favorite baron using the special coins, and the winner is chosen at the end of the Faire. 

That being said, Jesse saw two grown men trying to pumble each other with sticks at the center of ‘Hillshire’ earlier. Why sticks? He had questions. He almost wanted to get into the ring himself, but knew he could seriously hurt a civilian and potentially jeopardy the mission if his clothes came undone. Which was highly likely. So he stayed away from the ring. 

For now.

Not that it wasn’t tempting though. 

He was a ruffian at heart.

Jesse fetched a small notepad from the back of his pocket, and then clipped on his press pass ID. It was just a piece of paper with his name, photo, and title stuck into a plastic card holder. Through an email exchange with one of the event organizers, he found out that the press pass ID was new this year. Jesse surmised it had something to do with Shimada activity. 

They probably background checked him. Jesse hoped they didn’t though.

That was the thing about the Shimada clan though, if they figured out his secret identity, it would make business a whole lot harder. He would be walking right into the wolf’s den if they knew who he truly was under the mask.

Not to mention the whole Haruto situation, though. That faired (haha) a little different. If Haruto was a cold blooded killer, then he was truly a man after Jesse’s own heart in the best ways possible. And for the good of them both, Jesse kind of hoped he was, because it would make the ‘hi my name is jesse and im technically outlawed in 40 out of 50 states and most parts of europe because of my previous gang affiliations and international hitman gig’ thing about a billion times easier.

But if he wasn’t... well, Jesse wouldn’t be the first Overwatch member to date a civilian. Lena Oxton, one of Overwatch’s premier pilots, was dating her civilian girlfriend of course. And they seemed plenty happy. But of course, Jesse wasn’t nearly as conventionally attractive as Lena, nor had he ever been the poster girl to all of Overwatch’s campaigns, nor did he know anything about legitimately dating people in the right ways. 

But there wasn’t a ‘hey we’re both soulmates but i have no idea where you went and you kind of stole my heart somehow even though we talked for literally 2 minutes’ textbook. And if there was, Jesse might just have to spend more of his personal money today. Which he didn’t like to do because he was running low on cash and didn’t want to use his emergency overseas credit card. 

If Haruto was a cold blooded killer, Jesse was already a victim. 

And that sucked. 

He continued walking along the interior perimeter of the event and spotted a bored employee at a vendor’s table called the Fairy Realm. She had a flower crown on her head, and some glittery wings that looked more bumble bee than fairy. The lady was typing away on her phone and blowing a bubble with her gum, which was funny, because it was highly anachronistic to the rest of the Ren Faire.

Jesse approached the stall and waved after he was sure she caught a glimpse of his press ID. “Hey there. I’m a reporter looking for the inside scoop on this party. Care to talk for a moment?”

She took one look at him and went back to rickrolling one of her friends. “Sure, buy a flower crown and I’ll talk. Sales don’t make themselves, you know.”

Fine, if that was the game she was going to play. Jack would have to foot the bill, though. He handed the fine woman a $20, and she got up to place the yellow tulip crown on his head. Jesse thanked her kindly, and she went back to her phone. Yellow tulips, Jesse knew, meant happiness. And that was a great change of pace. 

“Alright, uh, what does your name tag say? Joel. Hey, you’re the man that runs that blog. Didn’t think we would catch you out here or whatever. You do realize Alaska is the buckass of nowhere. People leave for a hobby. What do you want to know?” She didn’t have time to waste. Clearly, her phone was precious to her. 

Jesse clicked his pen and wrote down her appearance, the time, the place, and the weather for good measure. Storm pending. “Well, Chrissy. You know anything ‘bout these new sponsors your Faire has? Someone told me they’re not your typical types of people.”

She stopped typing and looked up at him. “The Shimadas?” Chrissy looked around to check that no one was close to their table before continuing to talk. “We’re not supposed to talk about them much. But yeah, those dudes are new. Honestly, a few of them started booking rooms in one of our only ritzy hotels, the Hotel Captain Cook, and started coming in weeks ago. Also I shit you not. Someone chose the name ‘Captain Cook’ for their permanent business.”

Jesse wrote down the name of the hotel, and that clan agents were already in the area. He nodded. “Interesting. So these people, you sure they’re from the Shimada family?”

She nodded back. “Oh, dude. You don’t stick around like me and  _ not _ see shit go down. They’re definitely from that fam. Some of them have been seen taking measurements of some of the docks we have. Like, I personally think that’s kind of messed up. One of my friends thinks they’re highly sus, like they’re about to do something sus. But we don’t really know what they want. They did give us a crap ton of money though. Maybe it’s to buy our silence.”

Jesse wrote down the thing about the docks. If that was true, then Hana and Lucio would indefinitely run into some trouble. Maybe run into trouble today. But Jesse knew they both could handle themselves. “Docks, huh? Thanks. Mighty useful. So, I take it the Faire got a hell of a lot more money this year than it’s gotten in previous years. That sound about right?”

She made a face. “Shyeah bro. We were actually able to hire a professional builder last week to help us set up for tech week. And some of the Shimada dudes actually helped us build. They tried to pass off the entire thing as their ring leader having interested in ‘American culture’ or whatever but I don’t think this dinky little thing is anything quintessential to the American experience. Except the grown men fighting with sticks. Pretty sure that happens everywhere. Something’s off.”

Jesse nodded again, and wrote that down. It sounds like something was definitely off, and local suspicion would corroborate the international arms dealing Overwatch were tipped off about. He thought about Cake, their mystery man. “Wh”--

“If you want me to talk more, you’re going to have to buy another crown.”

Jesse slapped another $20 on the table, and the woman dressed like a bumble fairy gave him another crown. This time, it was white gardenias. Which Jesse  _ only _ knew meant ‘secret love’ because he had an hour long conversation with Mei once about the flowers left for her on one of the communal kitchen tables.

Jesse opted for just trying to wear the second crown like an oversized bracelet, and went back to his notepad. “Alright, Ms. Chrissy. Last question from me. This one’s about the Faire. What the hell is the ‘Tomato Show’ scheduled for 3PM this afternoon?”

She found that question amusing. “Uh, have you seen one of the lepers around town? They’re not actually a leper, just say they are. It’s these guys we hired to try and sell all of the attendees tomatoes. Buy a tomato and you can throw it at some of the people in costume at our Town Square for the show. Kind of funny.”

Jesse wrote that down too, just to look like he was actually interviewing about everything event related, but didn’t think it would be relevant at all to the mission. “Alright, and that’s all from me. Thank you for letting me interview you, maybe you’ll become famous after I publish my new 3 Baron’s article.”

Chrissy smirked at that one. “Oh, shit. Honestly, you jest, but I’d be the most popular kid in town if you mentioned me. Chrissy. Alright, can I ask you something since you just wasted 10 minutes of my life that I could have spent pranking my friends online?”

It’s not like Jesse had anything better to do at the moment. “Sure. I won’t pass off my social security number though.”

“Rats,” she says. “Ok, but seriously. What’s with that getup? Were you trying to impersonate that guy from the Little Mermaid? It’s just the vibe I get. Prince Eric has blue pants, though, you do realize. And a red sash. Ok, maybe I’m just getting the vibes from your shirt and your hair. 3/10 try.”

Jesse sighed. “Not you too.” He ran his fingers through his hair. It was slicked back but it couldn’t have looked  _ that _ bad. “I’ll let you know my PartyCity friend tried real hard to dress me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next time: hana and lucio! also the beginning to the masquerade ball (ooOOOOooo)


	5. Repose

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the gang calls jack 4 a mission check-in. hana wins something

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry folks! no party this time, just jack because i needed to bump my word count. 
> 
> i made a fun drawing tho so u can see what the costumes look like!!!

Jesse drops his bag on the hotel room couch and tumbles over to land face first into the cushions, succumbing to sweet sweet release. Walking around that medieval circus was taking its toll, but the day was hardly over. It was about dinner time just about now, and the last thing on his agenda before the press party this evening was a check-in call with Jack. So not bad. After his run-in with Chrissy, the bumble fairy teen that scammed him out of $40 for information on an international crime syndicate family, Jesse interviewed a few more people.

In other news, someone had started an underground halibut coupon ring for the deep fried halibut vendor. Jesse had tracked down a coupon and taped it to the inside of his mini pocket journal, just in case. But he didn’t expect anything to come out of it. And he had also gone to the Tomato Show, just for good measure. It was pretty damn fun. But that was just because he landed a few on this guy dressed like a tree. Poor dude.

He yawns and removes the plastic snake from the waistband of his pants, before rolling over to face the ceiling. He was surprised it hadn’t snapped in half yet, but make it was stronger than it looked, despite being the runt of the litter. Hm. What was the thing Ana said about ‘venomous creatures’? He’d keep a hold of it for now, maybe it’d be of some use in the future.

Jesse gets up and hears the door to the hotel room unlock. Hana and Lucio walked in with a giant bag of corn chips and their art student ‘sketchbooks’. (They weren’t really sketchbooks, they were cleverly disguised holopads that could take long distance photographs, which could come in handy during this mission in particular).

“Heyoo, cowboy. Make a new friend? Have you been carrying that plastic snake around you this entire time?” Lucio asks. He takes a seat right next to the couch and continues eating out of the large corn chip bag. 

“Someone’s gotta fill the gap in my achy breaky heart,” Jesse says back. He puts the snake away and gets out his comm device to start transmission back to Gibraltar base. 

Hana spares him a look and readjusts her vintage Carly Rae Jepson t-shirt. Art students liked Carly Rae, right? She takes another handful of the corn chips. Spying on the docks today wasn’t that much of an adventure, it had mostly been empty. Of course, it had also been beautiful. She made a mental note to come back to Jesse about the mountain vs ocean debate.

Yeah. Besides that, there wasn’t really anything else to see. Of course, over the couple of hours she and Lucio had been pretending to sketch, there had been a few elderly couples hiking in the area with their dogs. And someone with a penchant for fly fishing came over at some point too. Hana had mostly clipped photos of everyone using the disguised holopad, and then redrew the photos as stick figures to look busy. Lucio couldn’t do much better.

“Ready for the call kids?” Jesse asked. He got some nods, pressed the call button, before positioning the comm over the TV room table.

The comm blinks green, and then a purple-tinted projection of Jack Morrison comes up on the wall. He greets them with a salute. “Hello my lovely undercover agents, collect any information yet? Also, please tell me you checked and double-checked the room for any tap devices or bugs.”

Hana laughs. “Duh, grandpa.”

Jack nods. “Alright, let’s start at the airport and go from there. Did you make it past security easily?”

Security at the Anchorage airport had actually been a breeze in terms of smuggling in some simple unregistered weapons. The flight had actually been pretty pleasant as well, just stacks and stacks of flight peanuts. How about that airplane food? 

“Affirmative, Jack Attack,” Jesse replies. He decides to make himself useful and gets out a comb so he can begin removing the bits of dried gel from his hair. “No problems on our end. We were able to settle down pretty nicely this morning, everything is peachy keen ‘cept these kids nabbed the two twin beds which left me with this pullout couch.”

Hana and Lucio laughed. They sure had. Jack spared the team a chuckle.

“Well, our younger squad members do need their beauty sleep. Better a pullout couch than camping out in the Patagonia mountains, remember? No, I will not let that go. Sorry, champ. You’ve been through worse. Alright, I take it everyone went to the Renaissance Faire  _ in costume _ this morning. Lucio, please report on your findings.” Jack’s projection flickers a little bit, probably due to the various encrypted VPNs slowing down their internet connection from the hotel room.

Lucio eats more of the corn chips. The corn chip bag was the size of 2 milk jugs. It was way too much chip for any one person to handle. “Right back at you. We actually spotted one (1) Ana Amari giving away tarot card readings as a psychic. For pay, of course. I’ll write up an expenditure report for those later. She had a receptionist too, which I thought was pretty funny. We have no idea what she’s here for. Her pirate costume was awesome, though. Otherwise all clear on the Faire, unless you have anything to add, Jesse.”

Jesse nods. There was actually a bit of new from his end, that might interest the commander. “Guess who I ran into?”

Jack takes off his visor, mostly because he just wants his recon team to watch him squint into the camera. He didn’t like the sound of that, and desperately hoped that Jesse hadn’t gotten himself in any trouble. They had only been stationed for a few hours, and he couldn’t think of anyone that Jesse could have met that didn’t mean immediate trouble. Or like, that could potentially compromise the entire mission.

Jesse takes off his right glove to show his recently minted mark on screen. He thought, ‘might as well get this shit over with’. Jack, however, stayed silent.

A beat passed.

“A kiss? Jesse please tell me that either Ana stamped your hand with something, or that’s some sort of temporary tattoo you got as a joke,” Jack says.

Hana jumps in. “I think it’s a little more permanent than that, old man.”

That gets a laugh out of Jesse. He smiles. “Try again, Jack Attack. I got this bugger from someone, uh,  _ special _ . If you know what I mean.” 

Jack wasn’t laughing. In fact, he looked rather grim. “Son, don’t tell me… you owe Hana a new car?”

“I  _ what _ ? Oh…. fuck, I reckon I do.” Jesse sniffed and put his hand over his heart. “I forgot about the bet we made. Oh, man. That means I can’t make y’all watch any Hollywood movies without complaining now, neither. Hana, can you hold on for a bit ‘til we’re outta here before demanding your new vehicle? Also, when you’re changing its oil and performing routine maintenance, I’d mighty appreciate an invite to your shop for a refresher. Haven’t touched a car in a long time.”

Hana hi-fives Lucio and starts whooping and hollering. 

She had actually let it go because last time she talked to Jesse, it was back in that abandoned parking lot and Jesse looked distressed and it didn’t feel like the right time and it was really ok if she didn’t get a new car. But she was glad Jesse was a man of his word, because who doesn't like new cars? She started mentally planning out the paint she would have to buy from the shop, and some of the tools she would have to borrow from Bridgette’s studio to do some of her customizations. 

Hello bunny ears.

“Wow. What a sucker,” Jack says. “Alright, but let’s put this silly bet and the mission aside for a moment. Jesse, how exactly are you feeling about this new mark of yours? Looks to me like you’re nowhere near your soulmate right now, and Gabe and I were pretty inseparable for weeks. Well, years. Uh, something tells me we’d be all over each other right now too, minus the Zurich explosion. We all know how that went.”

Jesse scratched the back of his neck and hunched over on the couch. He wasn’t sure how he was feeling. Well, actually he did. But he didn’t know exactly how to say it, was the thing. “I’m not good. I’m not bad,” he started. He looked up and faced his friends. “And I guess the jury’s up on how cute my mark is, but I think it sure as hell ain’t ugly. You know, uh. To be honest, I guess I’ve just been waiting my whole life to meet this person, and it, uh, sucks. You know, actually, it’s kind of like that Loona song you kids are obsessed with. 

“The one you keep playing on repeat? What’s it called? Love Letter? I don’t know Korean so I can’t damn sing along, except that part that goes ‘I’m Really Really Lonely’. Jack, to be completely honest with you, I’m really really lonely. Like, really. That’s how I reckon I feel. Does that make a lick of sense? Clearly I ain’t nowhere ‘cept here.”

Hana and Lucio put the corn chip bag down and join Jesse on the couch. It was team huddle time (which was really just a euphemism for group hug time).

Jack smiled, but had a sad look in his eye. Having a soulmate disappear was something that still felt a little too fresh. Of course, he instinctively knew that Gabe was still out there somewhere. It was just a feeling. He was sure Gabe still knew he was alive, in some shape or form. But something was off, and he didn’t know what was happening. Something told him if Ana was over there in Alaska at the same time as the Shimadas, Gabe would be soon to follow. But that was trouble for another time. Not today.

Jack spoke up.

“Face your fears head on and with all of your might, kid. Listen, I know being vulnerable makes us feel like we are weaker than ever, but I still think it is where we gain our strength to continue forward. Jesse, not to go Dad Mode on you like Hana likes to call it, we’ve had some bumps and some turns. But listen: you’re the kid I always wanted and to be frank, I think this is the perfect time to put your mental health in front of the mission. Why not? This sucker is just recon, anyways and it looks like you’ve sent us some pretty decent points already.”

Jack threads his fingers through his barely there bands, reminiscing on how someone else used to do that for him. He sighs.

“Ok, decision made. Jess, I know you don’t like being reassigned in the middle of missions, but I think it’s time to change our usual dance. In the spirit of  _ not _ letting old habits die hard, consider yourself officially on vacation time after the press party tonight. Hana, you’re our new team leader effective at midnight. Lucio, keep doing your thing. And Jesse, don’t be like me. Don’t let him get away. Don’t let this be the end. And, hey, please keep your comm on for emergencies and keep us updated about your positioning. This mission could go to shit just yet.”

Jesse gave him a nod, while Hana and Lucio were all thumbs up.

Jack put his visor back on, and faced the camera. “Alright, anything else before I head off to Winston’s for a cup of joe at ass in the morning? It’s 4AM over here.”

Hana put her hands up. “Yeah, actually. I was able to snag some photos with my phone this morning before I left for the docks with Luc. GG, I know. Take a look at these dudes, I think they were calling themselves lepers. They were just looking tired and haggard, though, and were dressed in rags as a schtick to sell tomatoes for a special event. I think it was called the Tomato Show? Anyways, can we get Athena to run their faces through our criminal database just in case? It’s a hunch, I think I might have seen them before.”

She takes out her phone and presses a button to send them over via encrypted channel back to Gibraltar. Athena, their multipurpose AI, runs the photos through and tries to get a few matches. Seconds pass. There’s a ping from Jack’s side of the comm, and Athena announces the results.

Hana was right. 

They were a bunch of Talon goons.

“Well would you look at that. Is anyone having qualms about naming Anchorage, if I remember correctly, the ‘buckass of nowhere’? It looks like everyone, their mothers, and their step uncles twice removed are in town today,” Jack says. He lets his farm boy accent slip. “Maybe I’m biased because I grew up in a small town in the middle of Indiana, but looks like y’all have some friends over there.”

“Don’t you  _ dare _ y’all’d’ve  _ me _ , old man,” Hana says. She crosses her arms and pouts. “I’m willing to bet my new car, that doesn’t exist yet but hopefully will soon, this dumb town’s never seen so much action.”

Jack laughs into the mic, and almost pops his visor off his face by accident. Jesse and Lucio laugh as well, except Jesse tries to cover his face and Lucio dabs.

“Alright, alright. Cut this hamlet some slack. Kids, and please try not to get into trouble with Talon but keep your eyes peeled. I’ll try to go through my information networks and see if I can come up with any reason why they’re  _ also _ there along with Ana Amari and the Shimada clan. Until then. Cheers,” Jack says. He waves and then signs off, and Jesse’s comm turns off. 

Jesse lets out a low whistle and puts the comm back in his pocket. He guessed, it was high time to start prepping for the press party this evening and put on his second costume. Hana and Lucio, sensing that he was about to change out of his Faire attire, told him to hold up. 

They both ran into the main room, and Jesse swore he could hear construction noises from across the wall. Like someone hitting a hammer to a plate of steel. And then there was some door shutting. And then a cat started meowing out of nowhere. And then there was a large cymbal noise. 

And then the pair came back dressed in their own original costumes. 

Hana ditched the Carly Rae t-shirt and jeans for her pink dress, and Lucio went back to being a trickster with the pointy hat.

Jesse should have sensed the group photo coming from a mile away. As with other Overwatch mission traditions, it was always fun to take a group photo and send it to one of the chats for judgment. Of course, Jesse thought this particular round of costumes would be a surefire winner amongst the other agents. 

He struck a pose. 

Hana took out her phone to take the selfie and clicked the screen, like he had done a million times before.

“Damn, ok, we look good FAM,” Hana says. She presses send and messages from different agents start flooding her phone. Lena wanted to know where Hana got her dress. Bridgette wanted to steal Lucio’s hat. Everyone wanted to know what had happened with Jesse’s hand. Some even sent a few preemptive ‘congratulations!’ messages.

But Jesse didn’t stick around long enough to find out.

As far as he was concerned, this gig wasn’t over… yet. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FURR REAL next time: party time, and everything starts falling in to place (dabs) FINALLY


	6. Midnight Journey: Part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> party party party

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw alcohol mentioned like twice (for background characters) and i describe a lot of lights in this scene for the party. 
> 
> also this chapter is really vaguely horny, but just vaguely. YEEEHAW PARTY TIME. we did it! we're like half way through this thing!

Hanzo Shimada got out of his car after parking it in a corner of the lot and let the warm July air hit him in the face. Maybe he was just sensitive, but he thought that different places had unique smells, and today the air was crisp. Maybe the crispness came from the tall mountains lurking every which way, always in eyeshot, or the sea just 20 minutes off, or the forest threatening to take them over the edge. 

The moon wasn’t visible through the rainclouds, which had quietly started to creep into all corners of the visible sky. So when Hanzo said it was dark, he meant it. 

Of course, that didn’t mean he couldn’t see anything. There were bright lights just beyond the corner.

He walks down the dusty path, passing other cars along the way, and takes out the sponsor ID he was given by a lovely Faire organizer. As one of the largest Faire sponsors, the game he played was fashionably late. Of course, sometimes that was difficult to follow. He heavily enjoyed showing up to meetings on-time, if not early, to the dismay of those beneath him.

Anything else was unacceptable.

But Americans, as he had learned this week, had their own brash and stupid way of doing things. 

His mind couldn’t help but wander on a certain individual he had met, a tall man with tan skin and a funny medieval-esque costume. He was clearly a man of caliper, but he expended his resources in appearing like he knew nothing. Hanzo had noticed. The first time Joel had shot at the board, it had almost gone off the side, but it landed square and with sheer power. His second shot had been closer to the target. 

Hanzo would have attributed this to fool’s luck, but he knew better. The man’s third shot told all, as it had knocked down his own in a flirtatious gesture. Joel, the man that has utterly consumed his thoughts as of late, was not like he seemed. It was utterly peculiar.

And it was simple geometry.

At least, Hanzo thought so.

And, well, there was something about the curve of Joel’s smile that piqued Hanzo’s interest a little too close for comfort. It was a little embarrassing. He was not here at the end of the Earth, in a remote town away from the lower 48 states, for fun. And, yes, he maintained that position after spending the entire day surveying the Faire in his street clothes. 

There were too many eyes on him, and Hanzo knew that.

As of late, Hanzo had taken to smiting his enemies. Striking down those who dared oppose his younger sibling in a grand act of justice… or revenge. He liked to believe this was an act of justice, but he also knew he was not a clean man.

After the situation with his brother, Hanzo had tried his best to repent--visiting Genji’s grave every year, leaving flowers, performing a cleaning. All while on active duty as the new head of the clan. However, recently, Genji had caught on, taking Hanzo by surprise. The two confronted each other in the most unexpected way possible--Genji bestowing upon him endless forgiveness. 

Hanzo didn’t think himself worthy.

For a great time.

But time passed, and he decided to make things right in the best way he could.

And so as the new leader of the Shimada clan, he decided to start trouble from the inside out: giving tips to a well-known underground agency that called themselves heroes. Whether Overwatch was filled with heroes was highly debatable, according to the United Nations. The team was illegal since their collapse years ago. But he sent them encrypted messages using a pseudonym anyways. If it was one thing Hanzo Shimada knew, it was to always think 1 step ahead of his enemies and 2 steps ahead of his allies.

He tread with caution.

Things had been operating with smooth sailing as of late, too. He would have thought the entire thing grand too, lest he did not know about his own family’s scheming qualities. It was too quiet. It was a suspicious quiet. And suspicious was never good. He knew he was a great leader, but he surely was not that powerful enough to stop disagreements before they even started.

He surmised that the clan elders must have been plotting against him.

It was a wild guess, and one he hoped wasn’t real, but he took protective measures anyways.

He did what he thought best--run away, but in order to regroup. 

So for the past month he found himself leading the effort to step up a small Renaissance Faire in a small town in Alaska, donating more than was fit for such an event. He helped with their tech week, and hired contractors that could make the entire affair much more elaborate. His team let the Faire hire their own photographer, though. It seemed to him that they already had a man that came around yearly.

And in order to do so, Hanzo had brought groups of his own men to town as well, renting out rooms in one of Anchorage’s premier hotels.

But the story he told his own family was different. 

Apparently, he was supposed to be officiating an illegal trade of weapons to a certain group based in Russia. By boat. He actually didn’t expect his own family to buy the ‘im setting up this faire as a guise for the actual illegal trading’ thing, but it had fallen into place rather quickly. Which was one of the reasons he was so suspicious. Hanzo tried to play the part, though, anyways. His family didn’t need to know that he knew something. He felt it.

Something was going to happen.

But he would surely strike first. 

It was like having a bad case of anxiety, trying to point into a nebulous cloud and expecting something to come out.

He walks up to the reception desk, occupied by someone wearing a dragon onesie with a clipped on bow tie. And he didn’t think the costume half bad, for starters. However, the individual next to him wore a costume that was a million times more elaborate and professional looking. She was a knight, with a gorgeous set of armor adorned with a costume contest ribbon and a necklace of fake pearls. That made Hanzo smile on the inside.

He flashes his ID before storing it away, and is immediately ushered in. He continues walking past the vendor tables built for the Faire attendees, and makes his way to a larger tent setup for the party. He could hear the music blasting from here. It was some sort of sea shanty, and he supposed he would have to question the hired DJ later in the evening. For now, he had to do some mingling. 

He decided to do something raucous with Shimada money this evening--who didn’t love a masquerade? Donors and journalists were all required to wear masks to the event. It was perfect for retaining some form of anonymity. And anonymity is what he needed, because he needed the inside scoop on his family’s loyalty.

He had also decided to play the part, and commissioned a costume from one of the tailors in town just last week.

They had given him a dark gray mask that covered the top half of his face, and since the tailor was a woman that was over the top, they also gave him a gray cape with a shine to it. The inside faded from a black to a deep blue, and was adorned with crystals that formed celestial patterns. Hanzo thought it was kind of tacky, in all honesty, but since ‘tacky’ was not what he was known for, it was all the more reason to purchase the outfit.

The tailor had also given him this quaint little headband, that was adorned with small disks depicted the moon’s lunar cycle. The leftmost disk was pitch black, and waxed all the way to the middle where the disk was entirely white. And then the disks started to wane again, until until the rightmost disk was almost entirely black this time, save for a sliver of white. 

It would do just fine for a costume.

Hanzo steps inside the tent and sees that the majority of his invitees had already arrived. The Faire had some strange sponsors every year, all of them without highly criminalized connections. One of Hanzo’s favorites was the Lang & Associates, inc. organization. Why did a financial firm donate to something so bizarre as a staged Ren Faire? Hanzo supposed they were doing it for the free advertising. But the Faire also had other sponsors, like the Lutheran Church of Hope. 

What did a small church have to gain by publicizing themselves on the Faire’s program guide? Hanzo didn’t have the answers. But he wish he could find someone that could answer his questions. 

He decides to go and get a drink from the concessions table, and makes his way through the throngs of people now forming small groups. All of the beverages at the table were individually sealed and wrapped for the safety of the party attendants. 

Just like he liked it.

He decided to get one of the disgusting cranberry juices no one was drinking, and get on with mingling. 

And then he wandered into a small group of his underlings discussing their day. If he was right, they were the underlings he nicknamed One and Two, because they were typically assigned together on assignments. Not because they were the best and second best, respectively, but because they were the weakest links. If you saw One, you probably saw Two. And as Americans say, ‘they didn’t know how to act’.

One and Two were typically giving the least important tasks. Mostly because they blurted out everything, and it was sometimes dangerous to have them run around doing anything else. Hanzo didn’t know how they had sneaked into the tent, though, because this was a VIP (or Very Important Personnel) event only.

“Oh, man. Can you believe we sold so many fish sticks?” one of them says. He takes a swig of his beer. “Gods,  _ so _ many pieces of fried fish. The halibut. I’m kind of sad we didn’t get to keep any of the profits.”

The other one laughs, and crushes a can by smashing it against his head. “Yeah, ugh. Hey, at least we get to stay in that fancy shmancy hotel or whatever. I think it’s a great payoff for an easy job. Who cares what the rest of the family is doing, you know?”

Hanzo took a sip of his juice. Surely, collecting information wouldn’t be  _ that _ easy. His proteges changed topic entirely, and probably not on purpose, either.

“Man, I heard they started a competitive ping pong ring in the hotel basement,” one of them says. He finishes his beer and crushes the can against his head, like the other one did just now. “Want me a piece of that. I squandered all of my money the last time it happened, though.”

Hanzo wasn’t surprised that such a thing had broken out, he remembered his father mentioning it once. Though he had never seen one in person. 

“Whatever, man. You would never win anyways.  _ Hic _ . But damn did you sell halibut. Do you think more people would have bought from me if I had gone off on my own and started my own stall, instead of trying to sell more fish to the peeps that had just bought one off of you?  _ Hic _ ,” the other one said. 

The first one laughed at that, a sort of slow and drawn out laugh that only someone clearly under the influence could give. “Ok, enough about the fish. How about that babe in the knight costume? I bet she could suplex me no problem.”

And at that point, Hanzo started tuning out. Clearly, he had chosen the wrong group of people to spy on, because these two were getting nowhere today. The DJ continued on and on and on, but  _ not _ like the Don’t Stop Believing song by Journey. (Streetlights, people). 

The DJ though, must have gotten bored, because Hanzo’s ears started to ring the second he changed his mind about the party’s medieval theme. 

The crowd cheered, Shimada members and Americans alike, when a disco ball lowered itself from the ceiling and New Rules by Dua Lipa started playing. Half of the crowd that had accumulated in the wings for polite conversation and networking, flooded the dance floor. Hanzo sort of wanted to join along, but decided to focus on gathering information.

The disco ball started flickering multicolored lights all over the inside of the tent. Everything was a brilliant hue of oranges, red, purples, blues, and greens. It was like a Pride parade, except not. It was really not. The people went ballistic, trying to secure a spot on the floor before there was none left. Even One and Two left him in favor for a spot.

The song played, and once the crowd mostly settled, Hanzo caught a man that was all too familiar at the edge of the tent.

Joel looked different this time, and was talking to someone while writing down notes on his miniature notepad. Like a journalist. Hanzo didn’t realize he had met a  _ journalist  _ of all people. 

But he would recognize those toned legs anywhere. The man knew how to rock a tight pair of pants.

Joel this evening was wearing a white mask, and his hair was slicked back again like this morning. But this time, he also wore a headband that was adorned with golden spokes that looked like rays from the sun. His shirt was nice too, and it pleasantly outlined his waist--a button-up with scalloped edges. The shoes were ok, but that didn’t matter. He was wearing a cape as well, with an image of either a sunset or sunrise on the inside. How every dramatic.

Hanzo continued tracing lines up and down Joel’s body.

Tight pants.

Tight pants.

…

That is, until he was caught red handed. The next time Hanzo looked up, Joel had somehow caught on. They were looking at each other now, as Joel had stashed away his notepad and had finished what Hanzo considered his interview.

Time certainly stopped for a moment, somehow. It was very unreal. Hanzo couldn’t pinpoint why, but something was different about this infatuation of his. He didn’t like that he didn’t know  _ what _ exactly. But he felt a magnetic force pull him across the room, right through the wings of the tent.

He makes his way over, and so does Joel. Hanzo can’t even hear his own foot steps on the floor because the music is so damn loud, but he continues moving anyways. And the multicolored light try desperately to distract him from his new target. But he keeps walking. They are accompanied by a solid ‘I got new rules I count em. I tell them to myself’ from the speakers. It echoes.

They eventually push past enough party attendants to meet each other at a location equidistant from their previous positions. And Hanzo is shocked at how much they contrast, for they contrast as much as they match. Joel’s costume is dark where his is light, and light where his is dark. Joel is red where he is blue. 

Hanzo catches his prey up close, and spares Joel a hand on the cheek. He examines the mask Joel is wearing. It has frilled edges, but the nose is sharp like that of a hummingbird. It was cute and rather novel, he thought. It was topped with a solid coat of transparent glitter, which had been properly sealed to prevent breakaway glimmer. Hanzo traces his index finger along the grooves of Joel’s mask, and then starts tracing a hand around Joel’s chin. 

He feels Joel’s stubble through his gloves, and feels the warmth accruing between them for being positioned so close together.

“Well, well,” Hanzo says. “I didn’t expect to see someone shine so bright in the middle of the night today.”

Joel smiles, and Hanzo captivated by his glistening teeth in ways he can’t properly describe to anyone but himself. But he checks himself, and decides to put his hand down on top of Joel’s heart. They look into each other’s eyes. It was only polite to maintain eye contact.

The dashing man takes Hanzo’s gloved hand and places a kiss on top of the fabric. “Are we playing a rhyme game today? Seems trite, but okay.”

Hanzo laughed. “No need to complicate things, correct? Excuse me. Now tell me, you stranger. I didn’t know you were a reporter. Have you come to spy on me like all the others?”

Dua Lipa on blast continued with a ‘I keep pushin’ forward but he keeps pullin’ me backwards’. The lights keep flickering between different colors.

Joel’s smile momentary fads, but quickly resumes in composture. Hanzo wonders if he said anything to offend the other man, but quickly decides he said nothing of the likes. It was incredibly difficult telling what Joel was feeling under that mask of his. Hanzo believed that eyes were windows to the soul, but eyebrows were as well. And eyebrows neither of them had, at the moment.

“Are there people out there giving you trouble? Tell me not. I’m sure you’ve done nothing wrong in your life, just like me,” Joel says with a grin. Hanzo could tell the man was joking, but said nothing of it. Joel continued. “Though I’d love to interrogate you about your romantic life. For personal reasons, if you get my drift. Anyone caught those gorgeous eyes looking back at me?”

“I don’t know. It depends on the man asking, and if he’s here to do any intentional unmasking” Hanzo replies. Either Joel was a reporter, or he was equally as successful sneaking into parties as One and Two and simply playing the part.

He didn’t know which one he preferred more.

Joel could have been a genuine reporter, and that made the entire ‘my name is hanzo and im the head of an international crime syndicate family but dont run away just yet cause im actually trying to take them down from the inside’ thing maybe a tad easier. Or maybe it made the reveal harder. He didn’t know how it affected things. Civilians were always touchy. No one was supposed to know about Shimada proceedings except those already inside the family.

For this reason, a lot of the clan opted for marrying their children with people that were extremely wealthy, or people that had family members already in high positions of power. It was much easier to hide their own illegal activities when, say, someone’s spouse’s brother was the Prime Minister. And accruing more wealth via expensive dowries was always welcomed. 

Marriage was a political move, something typically used to further the Shimada family itself, and nothing more. Of course, there was always the issue of soulmates. Some members of the clan were downright prevented from meeting anyone their parents didn’t approve of, because it could get in the way of a particularly useful marriage. It was terrible.

The clan elders were known to play a mean game.

And Hanzo did  _ not _ like to play Cat and Mouse.

He sighed. 

Joel picks up on Hanzo being lost in a reverie, and holds his hand. Joel leans down, mere inches from Hanzo’s face. “Got something on your mind there, partner?”

Hanzo, inexplicably, wanted to lean in for a kiss. But they were so dully interrupted by the antics of their incredibly wild DJ. The two practically jumped apart once they heard a large fog horn come off from the DJ booth. The music turned off, and the lights changed from ‘party’ to ‘meeting room chic’. There was static as the DJ tried to wrangle in the microphone, with little success.

“Ok, dudes. And gals. And Non-Binary pals. And those of you that literally hate the concept of gender itself. But most importantly, everyone give a  _ huge _ round of applause to my mom,” the DJ says in a California boy accent. A few people started clapping when a woman in the middle of the room started waving. “That’s my mom! She looks just like me. Hey mom! Did you see that I got a new job? Sorry, I forgot to tell you, dude. Love you anyways and see you for dinner.”

“Ok. So, right now, we’re gonna take it real slow. Look into the eyes of the person next to you and ask yourself: bro, you’re you and I’m me and we could make a real match. But don’t make it weird, because you probably not unless you’re actually soulmates or something. This next portion was commissioned by the Alaskan Railroad company, don’t ask me why man, ‘cause I don’t know. We’ve decided to randomly choose two people standing right next to each other. A pair of two, if you catch my drift. 

“The moon’s not out ‘cause of the clouds, but pretend it’s a full moon tonight. Pretend it’s shining through the tent right now, and hitting you square in the face like a big pizza pie.”

The DJ, who Hanzo now recognizes as the squire from the darts game this morning, clears his throat and flips the page to the script he’s supposedly reading. But clearly he’s taken a lot of artistic liberties. What the hell was he doing here? Hanzo didn’t remember hiring him. 

The DJ continued. “Pretend it’s amore, ‘cause if you’re caught under the spotlight right now, we heavily suggest you do a little waltz for us on the dance floor, brah. That’s right, everyone clear the hell out for this. This thing that was paid by the Alaskan Railroad company, once again. They handed me this script. Who knows why. @ them if you need a railroad.”

There is grumbling as people clear out of the dance floor, and start occupying the wings of the tent. Hanzo and Joel huddle together as they are squished further and further down to the side by the people heaving the middle of the room.

There is a loud drumroll. 

“Alright, thanks. Ok, hope you’re ready to par-tay, dudes and everyone but dudes.”

The large spotlight, situated next to the disco ball, starts moving around the crowds of people. One moment, it’s all the way across the room. The next, it’s by the drinks.

The crowd starts cheering and someone in particular screams, hoping that their screaming will make the spotlight land on them and their partner.

But it spots Hanzo and Joel in the corner. 

There is some static as the DJ makes a new announcement. “Oh, ho, ho. Man. Check it out, looks like we got a sun and a moon. Did you two plan that out? Did anyone else coordinate their costumes like these two? I think the fuck not”. 

The DJ flips to another page in the packet he is reading of of. “I just said fuck but that part certainly wasn’t sponsored by the Railroad company. Mr. and Mr. Far Outta this World, please make your way to the dance floor. Everyone give them some space. (Haha. Pun def intended). I hope you two dudes know how to waltz.”

The spotlight on them changed from a blinding white to a warm yellow.

The crowd started cheering, and Hanzo caught himself in a polite ‘first dance’ of sorts, mostly because he did not want to say no. Besides, he didn’t know how he would turn down so many people. The two walk hand in hand and position themselves in the middle of the dance floor--Hanzo puts his right hand on Jesse’s side, and the two lock their hands on Hanzo’s left.

There are a few scattered cheers as the song starts cueing up.

“Have you waltzed before?” Hanzo asks.

Joel shakes his head no. “Take the lead and let’s hope I don’t step on your foot.”

Now, this is where it gets interesting. The DJ stopped playing for a bit, and got out a stick to conduct al 5 person band that had been waiting to hit it all night long. One of them blew a note on their saxophone, and that’s when Hanzo knew he was going to lose it. Someone else hit their drum. The vocalist starts to sing the opening notes to the song, which Joel instinctively recognizes as At Last, but the rendition of the version sung by Beyonce.

Hanzo tries not to break out in laughter, and the crowd starts to cheer. He starts trying to travel with Joel around the perimeter of the dance floor. 

“Just follow along,” Hanzo says smoothly. Joel has some near misses, and almost clocks him in the foot several times the first minute. But after that, it was smooth sailing. Hanzo was impressed his dancing partner caught on so fast, and starts a turn.

There is some scattered clapping as the duo moves on to a move more complicated than travelling.

“We’re doing a decent job,” Joel says in the middle of being spun around. 

Hanzo pulls him back in and they start to chasse. The position allows him to get a better glimpse of the audience staring back at them, and he sees someone that he didn’t expect to see again. A tall man that he couldn’t pinpoint, a man in a plague doctor costume. His shoulders were heavily padded with black and dark green feathers, and he wore a mask that covered his entire face. 

He was occupied with getting something from the concessions table, and Hanzo quickly turned back to Joel in fear of being spotted. The two box step in place.

“When the moon is full, it begins to wane,” Hanzo says. The band at this point is halfway through the song, the saxophone player going absolutely nuts.

“May I?” Joel says. He lets go, and Hanzo takes the cue to reposition. Joel puts his right hand on Hanzo’s shoulder, and the two lock their hands on Joel’s left. Joel begins their travelling across the floor again, as the new leader of the dance this time. “Yeah well, can’t argue with that. But when the moon is new, it begins to wax.”

Hanzo tries to duck and partially buries his face into Joel’s shoulder, after spotting the plague doctor move out of the corner of his eye. Something was extremely fishy, and he didn’t want to figure out what was going on.

“Yes, the moon is constantly changing one way or another,” Hanzo says, just slightly loud enough for Joel to hear over the live accompaniment. 

Joel gives him a spin, and the two reunite to do another chasse. There are more cheers.

“Are you waxing tonight, my moon, or are you waning?” Joel asks him.

Hanzo sees the plague doctor out of the corner of his eye again. The tall man has approached the perimeter of the dance floor, closing in like a captivated spectator. Hanzo, though the dance’s follower and not the dance’s leader, initiates a dip and Joel catches him before he falls.

Hanzo places both of his hands on Joel’s cheeks, further obscuring both of their faces. He didn’t want to take any chances. 

The audience starts hollering, some of them screaming and demanding a kiss. 

Through his gloves, Hanzo feels Joel’s cheeks go absolutely red in embarrassment, and is glad that no one else can see the incredibly delicate display of vulnerable emotion. He closes in, but does not press a kiss on Joel’s lips.

“My dearest sun, wouldn’t you like to run away from it all? As you Americans say, why don’t we ‘blow this popsicle stand?,” he asks.

Joel, captivated beyond words, simply nods. Maybe it was the absolutely alcohol-free cranberry juice or the lurking danger just beyond reach, but the two hear the song come to a close and decide to ditch the rest of the party in favor of each other.

At last.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> anyways if you'd like 2 kno what songs were playing they were [this one](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2qgadSvNyU) by Dua Lipa and [this one](https://youtu.be/Vx_AhWeFcOU?t=88) by Beyonce. also yes that WAS reaper lmao.
> 
> next time: where the hell did hanzo and jesse run off to?? date time and the foreshadowed weather forecast


	7. Midnight Journey: Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> gay dating is like trying to fit a circle piece into a square puzzle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HEYYYYYY. glad to see this fic is getting some traction, hello all of my new readers! i love u some type of way. ANYWAYS. this chapter is brought to you by 'the straights incorporated' and 'someone taught me how to throw clay once, though not nearly as sexy or sexy-coded, and this chapter was literally never supposed to happen so i didnt plan for it at all and had to go with my gut because i have to meet the goddamn word count so HERE! enjoy your mess'

_ Sometime before midnight, pottery studio. _

“So tell me, why did you pick a pottery studio?” Haruto asks.

After their enthusiastically mediocre waltzing on the dance floor at the press party, Jesse and Haruto decided to call it quits for a more private evening. Jesse was glad, for multiple reasons. He was tired of the loud music and the bright lights and the throngs of people and the creeping fear he had about stepping on his dance partner’s foot. But most importantly, spending some quality time with the man himself--Haruto. 

And besides, better end the dance while it still didn’t have a body count. This was supposed to be a low profile recon mission, and something told Jesse that being the center of attention at a party where half of the attendants were well connected members of the press wasn’t such a good idea. He just hoped that the local news paper wouldn’t end up at the doorsteps of the UN tomorrow morning, because that would be a doozy.

But apparently according to witness testimony from Chrissy, the Faire hired their own personal photographer every year and that photographer always uploaded his photos online. So there was really no escaping here, lest Jesse wanted to track the man down and intimidate him out of his camera’s b-roll. Yeah, that sounded kind of aggressive. So he just hoped. Hoped high.

The most important part of the evening, though, was when Jesse sealed his fate as destination coordinator--choosing the location of his little get together with Haruto. He had opened TripAdvisor online and had quickly realized just how small and abandoned this town truly must have been because the official “10 BEST Romantic Things to do For Couples in Anchorage” article had mostly been populated by nature parks or hiking trails. And Jesse wanted to do something that was vaguely romantic, instead of illegally busting into somewhere where he had no jurisdiction in the name of a date.

It didn’t help that the first thing on the date spot list was a place called “Paint a Scarf Alaska”, where Jesse could only assume couples went to paint scarves. He decided to humiliate himself another way, by suggesting they go to a pottery studio which was on the other side of town. Great thing the ‘other side of town’ was only 20 minutes a way. Except Jesse had failed to account that there was no way for him to take his gloves off without incriminating himself.

If he took his left glove off, he would be exposing his metallic arm. If he took his right glove off, well, the cat was out of the metaphorical bag. But he wanted to keep the cat contained for a little longer because Ana Amari had told him earlier that day to ‘keep a card up [his] sleeve’ and so far, he didn’t really have any other cards. This wasn’t poker where he could just steal the deck beforehand and take a few cards for the road. 

This was real life.

And he hadn’t accounted for either of their wardrobes, either. Both of them were in high-end costumes. Jesse had reluctantly taken off his own cape while watching Haruto take off his as well. And that was kind of hot in a completely mundane way? Jesse McCree was losing his mind over nothing, and started over analyzing Haruto’s miniscule actions.

And dramatically fantasizing scenarios that wouldn’t come true just yet. It was hard not pulling up Haruto in his arms, and requesting to kiss him right here. Jesse would, too, except that would undermine the whole ‘card up the sleeve’ thing and then create a ‘you knew you were my soulmate and you left your mark on my _ mouth _’ type situation.

Which would have been cute for 2 seconds before someone got punched in the face for not thinking things through. Jesse had a lot of impulses, but he liked to think he thought through some of them.

Hanzo had taken off his gloves and asked Jesse to do the same, and Jesse had stated that he was having second thoughts about the whole thing and was too embarrassed about failing. Haruto had looked at him, looked at him in the eye, and had genuinely encouraged him to try something new. 

So Jesse really took _ that _ to heart, before trying to desperately scavenge a few plastic gloves in the studio owner’s office. It was a huge relief to find a box, so he layered a few on his left so his mechanical hand’s shape wouldn’t look that different from a real hand, put another few on his right just to match, and called it a day. Haruto made him want to try.

So the pair was here together in an otherwise abandoned pottery studio, wearing white aprons with streaks of dried paint all over them, making miniature pots with a few chunks of clay. Jesse would have had more success wrangling in a young calf with a shoelace and a whole lot of willpower than trying to delicately shape a piece of clay with his hands. But for Haruto, he felt like he could take on just about anything, even if it meant having to go through a couple iterations.

He was a sucker in some sort of love.

Or maybe just in utter clinical obsession.

He didn’t know which. 

The two settled down at a pair of clay stations next to each other, and started to work on the miniature pots project together. Haruto started his like it was no problem, but Jesse was having a couple of problems granted that he didn’t know what the utter fuck he was doing. Pottery lessons weren’t in the Overwatch handbook, obviously and for many reasons. Though figure drawing was, actually, for witness recognition. That was a fun fact. Jesse remembered actually being one of the better drawings of his training group.

Jesse puts a piece of clay in the middle of his wheel after watching Haruto do something similar.

“Why did I pick a clay studio?” Jesse asks. “Maybe ‘cause you see two people in the movies go to a clay studio every once and awhile. I don’t know, I thought it’d be fun with both of us out of our element. But clearly you have some experience that I just don’t.”

Haruto smirks and presses his turning station’s pedal. His chunk of clay started spinning around in a slow circle. “Yes, well. No need to be embarrassed, no one is good at everything.”

Jesse nods and pressed his own turning station’s pedal. His glob of clay stays on for one full rotation, before it decides to grow wings. Jesse’s glob flies right off of the spinning wheel and makes a loud _ smack _ as it hits the floor under a table that looks like it hasn’t been dusted in forever. 

“Aw, shucks!” Jesse says. He gets back up to fetch the glob and hears Haruto laughing behind him. Jesse dusts the poor thing off and gets back into his seat before placing it on the wheel again. Pottery was harder than it looked, but Haruto made it look easy. And pretty. 

And sort of attractive somehow. He wanted to say he sort of understood straight people now.

“Ok, that is quite alright. Try dipping your hand in the bowl of water right next to your station and wiping it across the outside of the clay. Right. Now lift it up over your head and throw it down with some force so it sticks to the wheel,” Haruto says. 

Jesse complies, and the thing miraculously sticks. He presses his pedal again, and the glob stays on this time while the wheel rotates. Success. Jesse runs his fingers through his hair, and then gets clay water into his hair accidentally. He must have not thought that one through. 

“Thank ya kindly,” Jesse says.

“Don’t worry, I like my men stupid,” Haruto replies.

Jesse looks at him, but frowns in the most pathetic way known to man. Like a sad puppy. “Hey now, that’s not very nice.”

Haruto spares Jesse a glance before erupting into laughter over the comical expression. “I jest, please believe me. Besides, I am still thinking about how heterosexual I feel for stepping inside a pottery studio after dark with someone. It is like we are in some kind of poorly scripted movie.”

Jesse forms a cup wit his hands around his glob of clay, and tries to get it to take an even shape around the center of the wheel. “Well, I guess if it’s a straight movie there’s the part where the man tries to teach his woman companion how to do something, and the scene is supposed to be romantic but really just insults the woman the entire time, and there is no ‘woman’ in a relationship with two men but I’ll take Lucy in this case anyways ‘cause she has better hair.”

The two work on their respective pieces on the wheel, and Haruto makes a lot of progress. Jesse ruins his pot in the first couple of stages to clay throwing, so he starts over a few times. The rain starts to drizzle outside, and it makes little noises as the raindrops begin to pitter patter on the large studio windows. Otherwise, the only other sources of ambient noise are the overhead fan and spinning clay wheels.

Haruto finishes making the basic shape to his miniature pot, and the only thing he has left to do is clean up a few imperfections on the surface. Otherwise, his vessel turned out rather precise, with even walls of the correct width. He turns over to Jesse, who never made it past the first step, which is making a proper cylinder.

“Do you need help?” Haruto asks politely. It was only the just thing to do, after seeing ‘Joel’ attempt to form his own vessel so many times.

Jesse nods. Haruto moves his chair and then spoons him from behind. Jesse can feel the sweat start to form on the back of his neck. Whether he was nervous about accidentally touching Haruto, or just some type of vaguely horny, he didn’t know. But he tried to not let it bother him and focused all of his willpower on the clay.

And nothing but the clay.

Haruto cups Jesse’s hands with his own, and the difference in their hand sizes become apparent. Haruto’s hands don’t fully cover Jesse’s own, but are strong and precise and very good enough.

“Let go a little bit, and let me press your hands to achieve the right pressure,” Haruto says practically into Jesse’s right ear. They were _ way _ too close for comfort and _ way _ too close to reenacting that one quintessential pottery scene from a bad Hallmark movie.

Jesse lets go, and feels the warmth and strength of Haruto’s bare hands through his gloves. Haruto pushes against his hands, and Jesse’s start to form the clay into a proper shape as it slowly turns on the wheel. Jesse could feel the little hairs on the side of his neck rise on end as Haruto breathed. Done.

“Alright, now this is the tricky part. Press both of your thumbs into the middle of the cylinder, and push down to form the walls of your vessel,” Haruto says. Jesse tries not to think about the perfume that clings to Haruto’s skin, or the minty scent of his mouth. He tries not to think about kissing his hand, which by the way, is caked in layers of wet clay. 

Jesse presses his thumbs on the vessel and it starts to form walls. Haruto sees him succeed and lets go for a little bit, but without Haruto’s guidance, Jesse falters. He stops applying the pressure needed to keep the vessel in shape, and it goes from ‘vase’ to ‘shallow bowl’ in a matter of seconds. Haruto mutters an apology and smiles.

“Hey, maybe you are just better at making bowls than making pots.”

“Oh, spare me. Justice doesn’t serve itself.”

Jesse takes his foot off the station’s pedal, and his wheel stops turning, as he deemed his bowl ‘good enough for the road’. Haruto left him in favor of his own station, and Jesse felt the lack of warmth at his back. He tried to think neutral thoughts, in attempts to stop the blood rushing to his face. He looked down at his hands, which were still completely in tact. The ends of his sleeves were covered in dried clay splatters, and he made a mental note of writing an apology letter to Overwatch’s unofficial official tailor for mistreating the clothes.

Haruto took out this metal string with knobs on the side, which kind of looked like a piece of floss at first glance, and started unmounting his pot from the wheel by sliding the string through the bottom. It came off clean, so there was no need to scrape it to remove it from the wheel. Jesse tried to watch and then tried to do the same. He sighed in relief when he was successful on the first try, this time.

“So, not to completely change topics, Joel. But let’s talk about the press party before we clean up. Tell me, you are a journalist, no? I saw you taking notes on a paper notepad. I am extremely curious--have you gathered any interesting information from your interviews?”

Jesse, glad he would no longer be out of his element, gave Haruto a confident smoulder. “Well, yeah. I like to travel a lot for my blog, especially when companies that need an honest review reach out to me with a sponsorship offer. I’ve covered stuff like festivals, large parties, and sometimes the obscure event if it means enough to its attendees. Of course, never figured I’d be out here in the middle of Alaska. But here I am, ya know? Though, uh, I will say. There _ is _ one question that I haven’t gotten to an answer to quite yet.”

Haruto gave him a concerned look. “That is quite odd, especially considering how charming you can be when you are trying to attain something. Tell me, who deflected your question and what was it?”

Jesse reckoned that it was safe to touch Haruto because he was wearing multiple layers of plastic blue gloves on his hands, and gave Haruto an unceremonious hand on the knee. Jesse would have settled for a pat on the back, but that was too, uh, coded for male friendship. And he was not trying to make a friend right now, kind of. “It’s the million dollar question. Seeing anyone right about now?”

Haruto frowned, but didn’t bother to remove Jesse’s hand. “Joel. My romantic life should be the least of your concerns. You know _ not _ who I am nor what I do. You do not understand the propensity for what you are dealing with, exactly.”

“They don’t call me a hot head for nothing. Playing with fire’s one of my games,” Jesse replies. He smiles at his own pun.

“Hm,” Haruto says. He considers saying something and opens his mouth, but quickly closes it as he hesitates to say anything at all.

They stay there together for a moment of silence, with the rain hitting the windows at a larger pace as the storm picks up.

“I don’t know if you want to find out, to be completely honest. It could ‘rock your world’, as you Americans like to say,” Haruto finally says. He sighs and picks up a little tool with a sharp edge, so that he may inscribe his initials on the bottom of their respective miniature clay vessels.

“Well, ever consider that I want to learn who Haruto is behind the mask? And no, I didn’t just say that because we took ours off at the studio door,” Jesse says.

He sees that Haruto is still considering, so he gives him some space. The two start to clean up the studio--wiping down counters, running some of the wooden tools under the sink, taking off their aprons, turning off the overhead fan, and otherwise returning the place back to its original state and then some.

Jesse took a moment to quickly change out his plastic gloves for the thick velvet ones he had brought along, and grabbed their capes from a corner of the room to meet Haruto at the door. 

“Ready?” Haruto asks.

Jesse nods and they step outside. It’s downright pouring so hard, Jesse can hardly make out the figure of his own truck. But it sounds lovely, like it deserved its own viral video on an ASMR channel. Jesse hands Haruto his cape, and it flickers when the light catches on the rhinestones. 

Jesse highly considers asking for this guy’s number, because there was no way in hell he’d let him go after meeting him again. But Haruto decides their fate for them.

“So, uh. This is difficult for me to say, partially because I never take interest in anyone much. But would you be open to meeting again?” Haruto asks, timidly. Jesse can see that is nervous.

“Yeah,” Jesse replies. “Yeah, uh, that would be great. Please, meet me again, actually. I’d love that.”

Haruto smiles at him, and almost looks sad for a moment. But then he is back to his confident self. “Well, then, Mister American reporter. Since I am in the business of ‘playing games’ and you are in the business of winning them, we shall meet again if you can decipher this clue--and I hope you do. My Sun, tomorrow when the sky sets, meet me at the Nest.”

Jesse sees him leave again in his car, and kind of just stands there on the porch looking at nothing in particular. He would definitely need to call Jack or Hana or something that could help him decipher that one. But first, he ran to his car and used his cape like a haphazard umbrella and turned on the engine to his rented pickup truck for the journey back to the hotel. The day was about an hour old, and he needed some fucking sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> jesus christ well THAT certainly happened. next time: what the fuck did hanzo just say
> 
> also was not messing with u about the TripAdvisor article


	8. Huh? Wuzzat?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> jesse gets interrogated like a teenager for staying up late at night without telling anyone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> today's chapter is sponsored by 'why is everyone suddenly talking about sex today?' and 'someone PLEASE stop bothering hana'

Hana Song, recently minted mission leader, took her foghorn and made her way to the living room where Jesse was sleeping on the couch. It was one of those early afternoons where the birds were singing, the sun was shining, and the flowers were blooming. It was literally perfect in every which way--everything was alive after the rain showers yesterday evening. Perfect weather paved the way for successful snooping when you were an undercover tourist.

She sat down on an armchair situated next to the couch, and saw Jesse drool into the couch cushions. It was kind of gross. He hadn’t even bothered to take his shoes off after coming home late last night--and Hana suddenly realized why Jack Morrison acted like a parent sometimes. He had a point, she thought. Of course, when  _ he _ called  _ her _ out on ‘coming back to base in the middle of the night from an undisclosed location’, it was never appreciated. And it still wasn’t appreciated, but at least she understood now. 

Being a mission leader changed things in ways she had never expected.

It was like when people expecting babies always say that they would  _ never _ lie to their newborn baby. But suddenly the newborn is born, and as a toddler it starts refusing to go to bed even though it’s ass in the evening, and suddenly it’s all ‘Jeong, I talked to Santa and he said that if you go to bed right now he will highly consider getting you that bike for Christmas’. And then toddler Jeong goes to bed finally, and the entire cycle repeats itself the following day.

With more lies.

Hana hoped that Jesse wouldn’t turn out to be a toddler Jeong, and at least call if he was going to stay out late at an undisclosed location. She felt sorry for all of the times she had snuck off of base the day before a huge mission, and everyone had been worried about her come morning. Hana owed 76 an apology or three.

But unlike a new parent, Hana was not half as merciful on kids. Or on 38 year old subordinates.

Hana blew the airhorn.

_ VUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU. _

Hana saw Jesse practically jump out of his socks and his soul leave his body. 

“Huh--wuzzat,” he says, utterly discombobulated. Jesse sees Hana looking at him with her arms crossed and sighs as he relaxes back into the couch because he didn’t even bother pulling it out into a bed last night. It had been so late, and he had been up for practically 20 hours. Something had to give, and he decided it was better to keep his sanity in tact for the rest of the trip abroach. “Hana,” he says, “Not funny.”

Hana smirks and puts the foghorn on the table. Lucio comes around with a tray of drinks--two teas, one for him and one for Hana, and a black coffee with some sugar for Jesse. Jesse rubs his temples, and then feels the eyebags on his face from staying up for so long. Hana and Lucio, on the other hand, look as perky and as healthy as can be. He wondered if he could negotiate to sleep on a bed tomorrow night, but knowing that these two loved their luxury, that was going to be difficult. 

He ran his fingers through his hair to find little dried up pieces of clay, some scattered glitter, and itty bitty bits of strong-hold hair gel. It had been quite the evening. He opts for smelling his cup of Joe, and it does wonders to rattle his system awake. Bitter with a side of sweet--just how he liked it.

Ah.

Just like a certain someone. 

“And where pray tell were  _ you _ , old man?” Hana says. She grabs her chamomile tea and blows into the cup to cool down the contents before sipping it up. 

Jesse frowns and looks to Lucio for some backup, but Lucio gives none. Hana was the one completely in charge of this interrogation. And well, it was high time she was promoted into a position of power, Jesse completely agreed. Jack had made a great choice. But Jesse couldn’t help but suffer as he was being chastised like, well, a teenager that had snuck out to a party. 

Partially because he had been given full authority to attend the party, and all that.

But whatever.

He gulped down more of his coffee before incriminating himself.

“Well, one thing turned to the next and suddenly I found myself making goo goo eyes at my soulmate in the middle of a pottery studio at midnight. What can I say? The night took a character of its own and whisked my sorry ass away,” Jesse says. He knew the consequences of not pinging in his location--it had just completely slipped his mind with everything going on. And what a night it had been. Protocol was protocol, though. They were in a remote town in a remote state of the US and sticking together was always the safest thing to do.

Hana heard ‘soulmate’ and her interest was immediately piqued. She put down her tea. “Soulmate? Did you say soulmate? Don’t tell me you met him again? EEEEE. WHAT HAPPENED?” she says enthusiastically.

“Spill the beans, cowboy!” Lucio says and takes another sip of his own beverage.

In all honesty, Jesse hadn’t meant to distract them from the whole coming back late at night thing, but if it worked it worked. Stories were his forte.

“Well, we danced a bit at the press party and one thing lead to another, and we hightailed it outta there to make these tiny pots. Except my pot turned out to be more of a bowl, ‘cause pottery ain’t my thing at  _ all _ , but yeah. It was cute. Except then he gave me this totally bizarre cryptic message, and Hana, it sounded like one of the lesbian memes you keep sending me,” Jesse says. He yawns and takes a moment to stretch his arms over his head.

“Like, you know that one meme that you sent me that’s like ‘what does she mean when she says she’s interested in me’? It’s like that. Except he was all like”--Jesse puts down his coffee to square his shoulders and give his best Haruto impersonation--” _ My Sun, _ that’s me by the way, _ when the sun sets, meet me at the nest _ . Like, what the fuck is that supposed to mean? Like, I know he’s asking me out and everything. That much is pretty clear. Except I don’t know if he wants to take me out like date me, or ‘take me out’ like snipe me, now that I think about it. Actually, I’m gay and I don’t know shit. As a society, we need to understand that lesbians are actually the pinnacle of relationships. Lesbians have it together in a way no one else does, actually.”

“OHHHHHHHHHH!!” Lucio practically shouts. He dabs. “GAY.”

“AAAAAAAAAAHH!!” Hana also practically shouts. She ditches her tea in favor the macarena. “WHAT LUCIO SAID.”

Jesse chuckles after seeing the enthusiasm of his two teammates. The support was well welcomed. He had to say though, the dancing was something new. “Well, yeah. Ain’t that a hoot?” Jesse says. 

“More than a hoot, old man. It’s the entire owl. Did he straight up ask you out on a second date to bird school, for birds?” Hana says. 

“Yeah, I have no idea what the nest is. Is that code for something? If you were your soulmate and you were asking out a reporter that clearly wants to be in your pants, where would you ask them out to a second date?” Lucio says.

Jesse wonders about that. Haruto had been been reluctant to share any information with him about, like, anything really. Jesse still didn’t know who he was or what he did for a living, but had a sneaking suspicion it wasn’t anything legal. Jesse didn’t know what else was big enough to ‘rock his world’ than a job that wasn’t supposed to exist. But to answer Lucio’s question…

“Uh,” Jesse says. “Taking out a reporter that wants to be in my pants. I would take him to a, uh, nice… hotel?”

Hana stops dancing and goes from glee to disgust. She takes her tea back into her hands and scornfully looks at its contents. “Gross,” she says. “BRB, I’m going to pretend you didn’t just say that and douse myself in mouthwash.”

Jesse can’t help but grin and hides his face between his hands. Lucio frowns and shakes his head side to side. He agreed--that was kind of gross.

“Wait,” Lucio interjects. “Hold on. That  _ is _ gross, but what if… Hana, do you remember any hotels with bird-themed names from this morning? Remember, we started walking around town like a pair of chumps in crispy white sneakers and asked for directions a million times this morning. We passed a bunch of weird ass hotels.”

“Yeah, we did. Hm. Hold on, folks. Let me do my thing,” Hana says. She gets out her phone and starts rapidly typing away. “So let’s start from the top. Your soulmate wants to meet you afterdark, so it’s probably dinner. And he was at the press party, which means that he’s either a reporter like you or the owner of some serious money. So we have to look for somewhere that’s not a hole in the wall type deal, or somewhere memorable. Jesse, you’re emitting horny energy so maybe this guy picked up on it and actually wanted to take you to a hotel. Now searching for upscale hotel restaurants.”

Hana continues typing away while Lucio and Jesse focus on their respective beverages. If it was one thing either of them knew, it was not to mess with Hana when she was in the zone. She was unstoppable when apprehending a target.

Hana gasped a few moments later.

“Ever heard of the Hotel Captain Hook? They have a swanky restaurant called the Crow’s Nest on the top floor. When the sun sets”--Hana starts.

“ _ Meet me at the Nest _ . With a capital N for Crow’s Nest. Hana Banana, bygone, I think you figured it out! Damn”, Jesse continues. “Wait. Oh my fucking stars. I think that’s the hotel occupied by the, uh, Shimada agents. Either of y’all remember Chrissy from the Faire? She said that’s where all of the Shimada agents started showing up weeks ago to book rooms.”

Lucio slicks his hair back and starts making satirical Italian motions in the air. “Bounjour, waiter”, he says with a fake French accent. “I’d like a plate of seafood with my side of yakuza-brand danger, please. And yes, only the crabs fed organic plankton--I don’t care if they cost… m á s.”

“LOL,” Hana says. “Maybe he  _ did _ just invite you to”--

“Impale me at a hotel?” Jesse continues. “Sure hope it’s with his”--

“Jesse H. McCree, or whatever your middle name is, you will  _ not _ finish that sentence if you want to live. In the off chance that he’s actually trying to kill you, which I highly doubt because this isn’t Tinder and you’re meeting in a public area, I only want to hear from you if the thing doing the impaling is a weapon. Like a knife. Not a… whatever. Do you understand me?” Hana says as she cuts him off. “You  _ will _ keep us updated on your location regardless because even if he takes you to another pottery studio, we need to know anyways. Let me remind you this mission can go to shit at any moment.”

Jesse starts irrevocably laughing and hides his face behind his hands. He didn’t mean to make Hana upset, but the joke practically set itself up and he felt like he was only doing the responsible thing--which was seizing the opportunity and going in for the dunk. He was surprised Haruto was being so forward, though, if  _ those _ were his intentions. Maybe Jesse was just completely misreading the entire situation.

The doorbell rang, probably one of the hotel staff telling them to quiet down, and Hana went to go get the door. Lucio gave him a low whistle, but chuckled to himself.

Hana came back a moment later and slapped a stack of various newspapers on the coffee table. Everyone’s eyes went wide. A man cosplaying a sun was dancing with a man cosplaying the moon on the front cover of each magazine. Each publication had its own spin on the press party, but each had chosen to make a fuss over this dance in particular, the one sponsored by the Alaska Railroad if Jesse remembered correctly. He didn’t know--so many things had happened since then.

Hana looked at him with such an amount of disapproval, Jesse wanted to catch the next plane out of state. But he couldn’t do that to them. Besides, there’s no way in hell he could justify that on the mission’s expense report.

The room was completely silent for a change.

It was so silent, they could hear someone unlock their door from all the way across the hallway.

A beat passed.

“Uh,” Jesse says to break the silence. “So we might have danced in front of everyone. We were chosen by that blasted DJ that keeps popping up everywhere. Look, it was hard to turn down. He put the spotlight on us and everyone started clapping and there was a lot going on and--I haven’t an excuse. But hey, what are the odds that anyone will recognize us? I don’t see our names on the headlines.”

“You are so lucky Jack hasn’t handed me my ass for this, Jess,” Hana says. “I'm kind of surprised he hasn’t called us yet actually. Maybe he’s sleeping in. Wow, am I  _ not _ looking forward to that.”

Lucio scratched his head. “Ok, not to be a bummer, but there’s no way in hell we’ll be able to get these pics removed. Usually when gossip and tabloid magazines take questionable photos, they try to ransom you the story first before publishing it. We’re fucked, so sorry Hana. But I think that also means we’re not compromised yet if that makes any sense.”

Jesse nodded. He remembers his Blackwatch days when a reporter had actually caught his ass on camera. Gabe had to fork over the equivalent of two roundtrips to Italy and a 5 night stay at a luxury hotel with meals included. It had been the reason that Jack and Gabe had postponed their honeymoon trip an entire week.

Now that he was in the position again, being caught in a dubious position by the press, but this time with a soulmate to boot--let’s just say he completely understood why Jack and Gabe had been so inconsolable. He didn’t appreciate having to pay them back for it eventually, but now he completely understood.

Vengeance took many forms.

Jesse picked the top newspaper off the pile and closely examined the photo. They looked great bathed in the yellow spotlight. Jesse was the one being twirled around and he looked exactly as he felt: smiling wide like he was enjoying every single moment. If all things went well, maybe this would all just be a funny story to tell a year from now.

“Not compromised is always good,” Jesse says. He scratched his beard and made a mental note to shave before heading off again. “So im meeting my soulmate at the Crow’s Nest around 7PM today. I've got a feeling that if he's involved wish the Shimadas, he might open up and tell me since he kinda likes me. Haruto still thinks I'm a random stranger though--wait.”

“Jesse,” Hana says. “Not to interrupt, but are you telling us you didn't mark him and he doesn't know who you  _ are _ ?”

“Work in progress,” Jesse says.

Lucio, whose mind had a propensity for greatness, felt the mechanical gears of his brain start turning. Someone affiliated with the Shimadas who would willingly give up information to a horny reporter. “Cake,” he says.

Hana shakes her head. “We don't have the money for room service unless it's life or death--CAKE! Overwatch’s secret informant that has been practically spoon feeding us top secret intel. We went on this mission because of them.”

“Cake,” Jesse says. Why didn't he think of that? It all made sense--maybe it just wasn't about him as a person. The soulmates textbook Hesse had read never mentioned anything about spontaneously being attracted to one another before markings happened, but then again, if they  _ were _ destined to be together it would only make sense. 

Jess stopped himself from second guessing all of their interactions-the flirtatious smiles, the winking, the kiss. But that was kind of hard to do because his imagination boat had set sail.

What if none of this was real?

If it wasn't, Jesse gave someone the permission to slap him in the face with a salami so he could kindly wake the fuck up.

“Remember what Jack said? You're on vacation,” Hana says. “This could get messy fast, just keep yourself out of trouble. No one in town had recognized you as the outlaw you are yet, so I doubt it'll happen if you keep shaving. Enjoy the date and if you find anything out, text us.”

Jesse have Hana a smile. “Checkeroonie, captain. This cowboy’s got a horse to wrangle.”

“Actually, fuck you. I bet my new car that you can't get laid at that hotel,” Hana says as she crosses her arms.

Jesse smirks. “Consider it  _ done _ , little missus.”

Everyone shoots out of their seat as Jesse’s comm starts vibrating and chanting the introduction to Yankee Doodle. Jesse takes it out of his pocket and practically throws it onto the TV table again. It turns green and a projection of Jack shows up in front of the wall again.

“What's this about sex and the new car? Hey, that sounds like a movie franchise I once knew,” Jack says. Today he sports a sweater and is drinking coffee probably out of a mug that says World’s Okayest Dad, which has been a white elephant present literal years ago. “What's up fam?”

Lucio groans.

“Hey Jack. Mission leader reporting for duty. It turns out Jesse’s soulmate might be involved in the heavy utility deal--he invited Jesse to dinner at the Hotel Captain Cook where all of the Shimada agents are staying,” Hana says.

Jack grumbles. “Wow, kid. What a romantic vacation you're having, huh? Have sex with protection, learn from my mistakes. Anything else to report before I go clean myself off with a mouthwash shower for just saying that in front of all of you? Woof.”

“Yeah,” Jesse says. “Hana just bet I couldn't do it. At the hotel that is--and it looks like little old Jesse might not have to dig into his savings after all.”

Jack takes off his visor to massage his temples with his free hands. Of course Jesse was trying to find a way out of this. If it was anything Jack knew for certain, is that this ragtag bunch of kids moved faster than the speed of light. And no, that wasn't just because Lucio had speed boosting music that practically gave him whiplash.

“Kid, you know what, when I was your age Gabe and I”--

“Ok GREAT! Mission leader SIGNING OFF.”

Hana turns the comm off before Jack is able to waste 30 minutes of their early afternoon spinning a tale that was older than time. Lucio muttered a ‘thank god’. As much as they would love another spun dad story, they heard enough of them on base.

She turns to Jesse. “I'm not messing with you. Call. Only. If. You. Are. Getting. Impaled. With. Something that's not DICK. Now get OUT of here before I kick you into NEXT Tuesday.”

Jesse gives her a salute.

He wondered if his sexual debut with Haruto ever came into fruition, maybe he would just get Hana a car anyways. Hana deserved friends that weren’t total pieces of shit. That and Jesse just felt guilty for making her suffer in such an unspeakable way again for maybe the 100th literal time this week. Yeah. Actually, maybe the 101th. Y=mx+b and all that jazz.

(Jesse preferred db/dt anyways since the derivative of y=mx+b was y’=m, where m is a constant so the equation denoted a constant growth formula. And Jesse didn’t know what to do with that new formula  _ exactly _ , but who didn’t love constant growth? Constant growth was something he desperately aspired to emulate).

Growth.

Jesse mentally hopped off of the S.S. Fantasize About Haruto’s Genitals train before it was too late.

He had things to do, and hotel rooms to scurry out of.

And people to avoid, namely Jack, especially because Jesse showed up in 3 major news publications in the span of 24 hours abroad. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dont think i forgot i canonically gave jesse calculus lessons. 
> 
> next time: damn hanzo who's cutting you that paycheck


	9. Cool It, Cowboy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a rendezvous at the crow's nest, funny waitress included

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw champagne mentioned once, like, the hotel has weird smells
> 
> ive realized, about 34k in, that this entire fic is just a really long winded fast burn. im sorry everything i touch turns into a fast burn. that wasnt intentionally at ALL
> 
> other news: misspelling of hotel captain cook corrected on prev chapters. its not the captain hook unfortunately :^(

Jesse parks his rented pickup truck a couple of blocks from the hotel at a parking garage, since he would have high trouble getting it parked at the hotel. He didn’t think they would let him just waltz in for a dinner date--or maybe they would ‘cause they were ritzy. But the garage was probably the cheaper option and at least he wouldn’t get towed immediately if anything went wrong and he couldn’t get back to his vehicle.

It was 15 minutes to 7PM, and the sun was almost under the horizon. The air was still nice and warm, but not too warm. He reached into his glove compartment and got out a pair of fake glasses with a fake gold rim. If he didn’t have the money to look the part, he would fake it until he made it. And these fake glasses made him look snazzy. He just hoped the hotel wasn’t rigged with those cameras hooked up to the blasted AI’s with facial recognition software. Jesse didn’t think he’d pull up a match to his scraggly mugshot--but he might.

He got out of the car and locked the thing up.

Today was a new day, he told himself, even though he had woken up  _ way _ past sunrise. Jesse pulled on the pants fabric right over his butt to readjust it. It made a  _ slap _ when it came back down. Ugh. Jesse knew that Joel Morricone was an author and all that, but did he have to perpetually be wearing a nice pair of slacks that conformed to every curve? 

Yeah. He kind of had to do it to ‘em. But Jesse didn’t like it one bit. He wasn’t the most well endowed person ever, but he liked to think he packed some ass. And that slight amount more than everyone else was enough to make pants shopping a living nightmare.

Don’t even get him started on wearing gloves constantly too since this whole mission started. He typically didn’t mind it--but it was hard to pair them with anything when it wasn’t that cold outside and they weren’t totally necessary. Hard to make them look like they weren’t part of some grand disguise.

He straightened up his gate as he started making his way to the front doors of the hotel, just had to cross a street. He knew this place sweat dollar bills by its huge valet circle and freshly pruned vegetation, if not for its awfully presumptuous name. Why put ‘Hotel’ first? No one said they were going to ‘Hotel’ Holiday Inn, they just said they were going to the Holiday Inn hotel. 

Rich people. 

Not that Jesse would ever have anything against Holiday Inn--those rooms were reserved for decently funded missions.

He walked in through the doors and stepped into the antechamber, which wasn’t really an antechamber, more like an extremely long hallway with about three separate lounges and a room to the side dedicated to selling artwork from local painters. Jesse smelled the air and was greeted with some sort of orange mixed with chocolate mixed with, uh, champagne. But that was quickly swept away by an overhead vent that was probably installed to filter out the air.

There were a couple paintings of whales scattered across the hall, and a lone hotel butler on tapping away at her phone next to a suitcase dolly. And she had on those butler trademarked Mickey Mouse gloves on too. Que onda.

Jesse walked his way to the receptionist and was greeted with a smile too plastic and manicured. 

“Hello. How may I assist you today?” the receptionist asked him.

“Yeah, hey. Uh. I’m supposed to meet someone at the Crow’s Nest--the restaurant y’all have on the top floor of the building--right now. At least, I  _ think _ I’m supposed to be meeting someone,” Jesse says.

The receptionist squints at him, smile disappearing into a countenance that betrayed emotions like scepticism and mistrust, and pressed a few buttons on the telephone. Someone picked up immediately and the receptionist started talking to them in a low and hushed voice, obscuring his mouth with his hand. Jesse didn’t know what was going on, but he wasn’t sure he took kindly to it too much.

The receptionist hung up and asked for his name.

“Who are you, exactly?” they ask Jesse.

Jesse tries to be polite about the whole thing. “Joel Morricone, freelance reporter,” he says and passes the receptionist a fake ID. Jesse hopes that Jack had spent enough money on it that the ID wouldn’t be immediately discovered a counterfeit.

The receptionist takes it and only looks to match the name to a face, and quickly gives it back without any trouble. Jesse stuffs it back into his butt pocket for safe keeping.

“Follow me,” the receptionist says. Jesse follows them around the corner and down a long hallway where there is a narrow employee’s only elevator with black doors. The receptionist presses the intercom and someone on the other side starts the elevator. 

“Wait here to be guided up for your private dinner experience. We hope you enjoy your stay at Hotel Captain Cook,” the receptionist says.

Jesse watches the person walk back down the hallway and back to the front desk. He patiently waits as the elevator dings each time it hits a new floor, all the way until it reaches the ground. The door slides open and he’s greeted by a familiar face.

“Whoa!” Esther says. “Fancy meeting you here.”

It was Esther, the PartyCity employee that had given Jesse a pair of tight pants for his Ren Faire costume without any proper explanation. The recently graduated student that took jobs to pad her pockets enough to buy multi-colored jackets for fishing trips on behalf of marine biology. The woman behind the myth, the legend. Jesse stepped into the elevator and basked in her omnipotent presence.

“Esther! Wow, and I thought I wouldn’t see your face ‘til I came back home. What the hell are  _ you _ doing here?” Jesse asks.

Esther snoops into the hallway to check if the coast is clear, and then closes the elevator doors. The two start ascending to the top floor of the hotel. 

“Well,” she says. “I was transferred over to wrangle in some nice halibut. I am sure you understand how that goes--word gets around when your muscles and your brain are as big as mine. Ha ha! The weather changes in the blink of an eye, but field biologists work faster. They must.” Esther looks him dead in the eye. “They  _ must _ .”

Jesse politely smiles. He loved Esther for all of her eccentricities. The elevator keeps pinging.

Esther continues spinning her tale. “I was transferred to a new fishing boat the day after you and the children came along for your ‘Halloween costumes’. Huge intentional air quotes. I’m having the time of my life adjusting to Alaska. Huge mountains. Loneliness and desolation around the corner if you don’t intentionally seek out companionship, and the like. I’m sure you understand. But there was a storm recently that kept us docked last night, so we are waiting until next week to head off to sea. And I caught wind that the Hotel needed a new last-minute employee for this private dinner today. Strange how all of that was extremely coincidental. But yes, I am here. Surprise.”

Jesse nodded along. A new employee for a private dinner… that was interesting. He wondered why a private dinner needed an employee unrelated to the rest of the hotel staff. The elevator chimed again for the last time, and the door opened up to a hidden room which was disguised as a pantry. Or maybe there was just seriously an elevator in the pantry.

Esther guided Jesse through the room, and they passed the kitchen where chefs in crisp white uniforms were busy at work. Jesse saw one of them chop a fish head clean off, and Esther whispered her approval of their form. Esther grabbed an apron from a rack and tied it around her waist before the two walked passed the kitchen, through a small hallway, and turned the corner into the main dining area.

And holy hell--what a dining area it was. Everything  _ looked _ like a million dollars. The glass chandeliers, the tables, the seats, the carpet with a pattern so intricate it could have only been hand woven by professionals. But more than that, there must have been around 30 tables and all of them were empty.

Private dinner.

So this was private dinner.

Just how big was Haruto’s paycheck, Jesse wondered, to buy out the damn floor.

They eventually made it to a corner of the room to a table which was more decorated than the others. There were small candles sitting in the middle, with a few roses in a small vase (pronounced v ä se) edged next to the enormous window. Jesse looked out and realized just how high off the ground he had travelled--they were in the perfect position to see the lake sparkle in the city lights. And the large, large mountains all the way across the pond, totally surrounding them.

Esther motioned for him to take a seat and Jesse took it with enthusiasm. 

Haruto sat opposite of him at the small round table, his chin resting on his hand--and with a piercing gaze. The candle light flickered in his eyes, adorning the rich color of his brown irises with flecks of gold. And of course, he was also wearing a pair of fake glasses, like Jesse had sent a memo or something about imitating Clark Kent for the evening. This soulmate thing was off its rocket. 

Or maybe it was just the pervasiveness of questionable fashion taste in modern society.

“Hey there,” Jesse says. He tries to tip his hat but realizes it’s not there, so he just slicks some of his hair back instead. 

“Hello,” Haruto says back. “My esteemed Joel, thank you for finally stopping by. You look… cute.”

Jesse could feel a blush creep up on his face, but fought it down. Staying strong for mother. Jack Morrison.

“What a schmoozer. Is it the slacks?” Jesse says.

Haruto laughs. “Perhaps,” he says.

Jesse swears, Haruto snaps twice and a live band materializes out of thin air all the way across the room. One of the violin players with curly hair hits a note, and the piano accompanist begins her tune. There is also someone with a flute and someone with a tiny trombone looking thing. Jesse squinted.

“Did you hire out a bunch of college kids to play songs for us?” Jesse asks Haruto. “Why all the jazz?”

“I do hope you are not bothered by all of the preparations I have made. As I’m sure you know--this hotel does not contain many… allies. I thought it would be best for something to drown out our conversation,” Haruto says. 

Esther comes back momentarily to hand them a pair of menus and fill their goblets with ice water. Jesse hadn’t even seen the goblets ‘til now. Haruto hands Esther a Benjamin Franklin for the service and she is on her way back to the kitchen.

Jesse picks up the menus and can immediately tell that the black menu holders are some sort of obscure leather. The menu itself isn’t extensive, but it certainly has quite the selection. There was an appetizer called the “cheese slate” which cost money. It wasn’t bad. But that much for cheese? That was the equivalent of an obscene amount of pringles. All of the entrees were pricier, and the selection ranged from a bison tenderloin (Jesse didn’t even want to think about where that came from), to halibut paella. 

Why was everything halibut around here?

Ok, so maybe this restaurant wasn’t one of those michelin star places that charged hundreds for a plate of curated microgreens and flavored oxygen bubbles.

But renting out the whole floor must have cost something.

Haruto folds his menu and puts it down on the table, having decided what to order.

Jesse tries to play it cool. He made jokes about Haruto being an ax murderer, sure, but you could never be too sure with rich people. Jesse was so young--to young to die, in fact. He tried to focus on the menu. But that was kind of hard. He pushes up his fake glasses. He went through his mental checklist. Pasta was never great because that shit got messy and garlic wasn’t productive to kissy kissy activities--except there wasn’t any pasta so he was worrying about  _ nothing _ .

“I feel like I’m lost at sea,” Jesse says. It was true--but he was also referencing the nautical theme of the restaurant. The place was adorned with paintings of ships and everything was mahogany. “What do you recommend?”

Haruto smiles. “Let’s dive into a charcuterie board for the appetizer. Any entree or side preferences?”

Jesse shakes his head no.

Esther, somehow sensing that her only two patrons were ready to order, appeared again out of nowhere with a little notepad. Haruto places an order for a charcuterie board, two mixed field greens salads, oysters, a single sablefish, and a mother fucking halibut. She stuffs the notepad into her pocket and runs back to the chefs to relay the order.

Haruto places both of his hands on top of Jesse’s, and they hold hands over the tiny flickering candles. Haruto gives his hands a small squeeze. “I haven’t a clue why you run into danger, Joel. Do you have any idea who the Shimadas are?”

Jesse knew at that moment that he had found their man--Cake. And if Cake was Haruto and Haruto was Cake… that meant that Jesse’s soulmate was not only part of the Shimada clan operation--but probably with a high ranking title. It made sense, considering the exclusive press party and the whole ‘hey i rented out an entire restaurant for our private dinner which has a fucking band in the corner just hitting it so no one hears us’ thing. But still--maybe he hadn’t been ready to hear that. 

Maybe he was just jumping to conclusions again.

He didn’t know which one he preferred.

“Well,” Jesse says, trying to keep his poker face. “The family that brought prosperity to Anchorage via excessive monetary contributions to the Ren Faire? Some of the locals think the family’s up to trouble, someway and somehow. I reckon I had a difficult-ish time getting anyone to talk to me about them, really.”

Haruto let’s go of Jesse’s hands. Then he takes off his glasses which were just for show, anyways. Fakes.

“Yes, allow me. They certainly  _ have _ been up to no good, that I can promise. They are planning to trade tanks and rifles to insurgents stationed in Moscow. Alaska made a great point of trade, location and population wise. If you came in through Anchorage’s airport, you might have noticed that not all of their gates have TSA checkpoints--making it all that much easier, even. But I think I’ve personally had enough of their antics,” Haruto says calmly, like he practiced the entire routine. He crosses his arms and looks out the window, forlorn. “So I’ve decided to defect.”

Esther comes back at that moment, placing the charcuterie board in the middle of the table. Not to ruin the moment, but Jesse takes a piece of cheese. That shit was delicious even though it didn’t have any fiber. 

Haruto laughs and pinches the bridge of his nose. “Joel you never change, do you.”

“Can’t help but enjoy the little frivalties when I got the chance,” Jesse says, enjoying a nice piece of cheddar. “So, uh. The Shimadas. They been bothering you? The illegal stuff--how deep does that go?”

Jesse cursed at himself for not asking a more formulated question. It was like his experience as a reporter just flew out the window and was thrown out to sea.

Haruto looks at him funny, before deciding to partake in the charcuterie as well. Haruto starts polishing off all of the strawberries. “Well,” he says. “It’s quite the neat operation, if you can imagine. They loan money, trade dangerous weapons, threaten those who oppose their reign, attempt to monopolize industries, collect dues, perform favors for those well connected enough, murder politicians. But they mostly remain under the radar because of distant family ties to those currently in political power. As daytime business owners they run shops and attend fundraiser galas. Not many are wiser. Some are.”

Jesse nods. Haruto’s personal account directly aligned with all of the Overwatch missions related to the Shimada family as of late. The murder sprees, the exclusive party lists.

“Well, ain’t that something?” Jesse says. He takes a sip of his ice water, which they were probably being charged for knowing how fancy this place was. “Tell me, peach, it sounds like you’re giving up a lot of secret info here. Why me?”

“May I?” Haruto asks. He points at Jesse’s face, and Jesse realizes Haruto is asking for permission to take off his glasses. Jesse nods, and Haruto does such. Jesse feels Haruto’s fingers graze the side of his face, and tries to stay completely still. He breathed.

Haruto places the glasses next to his own, by a corner of the table.

They look into each other’s eyes.

“No real reason, really. Well actually it is almost as if… well. Esther taught me this phrase earlier. I believe you are… ‘just neat’. I think I can trust you,” Haruto says.

Esther comes out with their plates of food, carefully balancing the dishes on a large silver platter like she’s done it a million times before. She sets them on the table and asks if everything is alright so far. Jesse thanks her for her time, and she is off again. The band switches to something a little sexier and the overhead lights dim a smidge.

“That’s kinda gay. Sounds like you’re hitting on me or something,” Jesse says. 

“It's only because I am,” Haruto says back. “Consider it.”

They both reach for the oysters and bump left hands. Haruto intertwines their fingers and presses down a little. Jesse immediately knows what he’s looking for, and takes his hand back. He looks up at Haruto, who is just softly gazing at him.

“You have secrets of your own,” he says. “Tell me.”

Jesse looks around the restaurant to confirm that they’re the only ones there. All he sees is the band kids, rows of empty tables, Esther tapping away at her phone and probably looking at more fish photos or something, the windows overlooking the city outside. Jesse sighs. He had tried to be discreet. And He doesn’t know whether he should tell Haruto or not right now. He doesn’t know how this would affect the mission, if it would affect it at all, if Haruto knew about his hand. 

The mechanical one with its own make and model.

If Haruto was part of the Shimada clan, there was no way he hadn’t heard of a certain vigilante that liked to play dress up. Jesse had gone under aliases when dealing with high profile clients, took all of the measures after his photo made frontlines ages ago after a series of knockouts.

Except this time, people knew his name.

Jesse McCree: Wanted Dead or Alive. $60,000,000 reward.

He starts to break out into a little bit of a cold sweat, especially on the back of his neck. The restaurant felt chilly suddenly, like they were surrounded by blocks of ice. Haruto looked at him, waiting for an answer, but not prying. Gentle. Jesse honestly doesn’t know what to do. 

He didn’t know when Haruto had found out about his hand, whether it was at the party or the pottery studio or even all the way back to the game of darts. If he had known all along. But it made sense, gloves could only conceal so much.

Against the looming danger around the corner, Jesse decides to have a little faith in something. Or someone, more like it.

He reaches across the table and gives Haruto his left hand.

Haruto takes it carefully, pinching the top of Jesse’s middle finger to grab the glove material, and slowly slides the glove off.

Jesse’s prosthetic hand slips out, his metal digits feeling a prickle as they become directly exposed in the open air. He wiggles his fingers a little.

Haruto takes the metal prosthetic in both of his hands, feeling out the curves of the metal, pressing against some of the blue lowlights around the wrist. It was much colder than a human hand, at the very least. But it was smooth and flexible. He presses his thumbs against the palm and Jesse winces a little. 

“I can feel that, ya know,” Jesse says.

Haruto gives him a smile and presses a kiss on the back of his metal hand and lets go. Jesse puts his glove back on.

“May I ask what happened?” Haruto asks. “If that’s ok.”

Jesse nods a yes. He readjusts his sleeves. “It was a couple years back, found myself stuck between a rock and a hard place. Literally, if you catch my drift. There was an explosion at the building I was visiting and got caught in the shuffle when it went off. They didn’t know if I was gonna make it or not--the doctors I mean. But it takes a lick more for me to kick the bucket, I like to think. Took a while to calibrate my metal hand though, it hurt like hell to put on ‘cause of the nerves. Yeah. But I think I still make a mighty good shot.”

Haruto picks up one of the oysters and loosens it from its shell with a cocktail fork. He lifts it up and across the table, right in front of Jesse’s mouth.

“Hey there, you trying to feed that thing to me? I kind of like mine with hot sauce,” Jesse says.

“You are supposed to eat the first one naked. Be a dear and humor me,” Haruto says. 

Jesse approaches the oyster, which looks pretty gross, and tries to slurp the damn thing up without spilling any of the juices on himself. Fishy. Huh. Jesse takes another oyster off of the ice bowl, loosens it from its shell with his own fork, and then douses the thing in hot sauce. 

He lifts it up and across the table, right in front of Haruto’s mouth.

Haruto frowns. This was definitely not how they were supposed to be eaten. It sounded pretentious, but he liked to believe there was an order to things. He eats it off of its shell, getting some of the hot sauce on his lips. He chewed. It was briny. And spicy. Huh. And sort of fantastic in a weird, unrefined way.

“Not bad,” Haruto says. “For something so pedestrian.”

Jesse laughs. “Your weird naked oyster was fine too, I guess.”

Haruto got another oyster from the ice dish and just put lemon on it this time. He fed it to Jesse, who was just an eager beaver at this point.

Jesse whipped up the last one for Haruto, but this time with horseradish and bacon bits he scavenged off of one of the salads. 

“Joel,” Haruto says in between bites. “Let’s play 20 questions. Let’s dive in. When was the last time you cried in front of someone? By yourself?”

“So this is a  _ date _ date, huh?” Jesse says. He piles some fish on top of his salad bowl. “Well, the last time I almost cried was in the middle of a parking lot. In front of these two art students that just tried to get me to calm down. That was… yesterday, actually. Time sure flies when you want to forget something upset you. But by myself… Probably after reuniting with a few friends of mine I hadn’t seen in years. That was months ago. One of them has this ugly hair that he likes to dye weird neon colors. I mighta cried in my room like twice that evening. Better out than in.”

“Ugly hair? Sounds like someone I know too well,” Haruto says. He adds the remaining slices of cheese and miscellaneous fruits from the charcuterie to his salad. 

They enjoy the music for a few minutes while they dig into their meals.

Pretty good.

“Haruto,” Jesse says. “What is your biggest dream and have you gotten around to it yet?”

“My biggest dream?” Haruto says. The lights above them flickered as Esther changed the brightness setting on accident. She pressed a reset button and the lights went back to normal. “Redemption. Even though we all make mistakes, I believe that there are some things we cannot be forgiven for. But perhaps we can be pardoned. Some dreams of mine are more attainable than others. Some are trivial even.

“Have you ever had the princess cake from IKEA? It is only second best to this strawberry cake I order every year without fail when I am back in Japan for Christmas. The princess cake is a noble swap... except the closest IKEA is in British Colombia, Canada. None in Alaska. It is quite unbelievable how there is an entire US State in existence without an IKEA.”

Jesse smiles. “Who’s pedestrian now?”

Haruto puts more fish on Jesse’s plate. “Still you.”

“You're so mean to me, peach.”

“Yes… and you come back for more. Let's go to IKEA, eat more so we don't have to take leftover bags on the plane.”

“Don't those things burn tons of fuel.”

Haruto gives him a look, and can feel his mouth curl into a smile almost immediately.

“Oh, well aren't _ you  _ sexy when you critique me for excessive fossil fuel usage? Shut up and kiss me.”

“I taste like halibut and salad vinaigrette and you want to  _ kiss me _ ?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next time: ikea? 
> 
> talon?
> 
> more bad jokes, as ALWAYS!


	10. Landing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> plane ride to victoria in BC, Canada

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> boop she doop. short chapter today!

“So let me get this straight,” Haruto says. “Neither of us are.”

“Yeah,” Jesse says.

They were en route to an IKEA located close to Victoria in British Columbia, Canada. It had been about 4 hours and takeoff from Anchorage, and they were now just cruising along. Jesse, predictably, was munching away at leftover salad from dinner. Of course, it was about 3AM at this point, so he was getting kind of peckish from the flight. Haruto had some food when he put the plane on autopilot a few hours ago, when they were just cruising at a stable altitude. 

They both had on these cute little headset things to minimize the noise caused by the engine. Well, they weren’t that cute, they were supposed to be highly functional by preventing permanent hearing loss. Hearing loss was no joke. But they were cute.

“ _ And _ so not only are we both attracted to men, but we both also want to kiss each other,” Haruto says. 

“Sounds about right,” Jesse says. 

“But you won’t, even though you want to,” Haruto says.

Jesse realized how ridiculous all of this sounded, how  _ he _ sounded for being such a goof about this. But one wrong move and someone would get an extremely embarrassing soulmate mark, and probably be laughed at for the rest of forever by literally everyone. And Jesse wanted to avoid that situation as much as possible. Considering  _ someone _ left an awful mark on his hand just 24 hours ago, things were already headed for the crash and burn zone. Jesse was really just trying to be polite.

Except he was just coming off as impossibly rude. This conversation had been going on for the past half hour in several iterations. This was about their 5th time running through the facts, why this specific situation was happening to both of them.

“I’m thinking about it thought,” Jesse says.

And, hey, it’s not like Jesse  _ didn’t _ want to be crashing lips with a hot guy piloting an aircraft right now--straight people had a point when they came up with ‘sexy pilots’. Haruto was already pretty fine, he just looked finer now in a headset and a pilot’s cap that had practically materialized out of thin air. He hoped relaying his innermost thoughts would serve as a consolation prize, of sorts. Haruto wasn’t so sure though. He knew what he wanted. He was a man of action.

“Yeah?” Haruto says. 

“Thinking about kissing you and other stuff,” Jesse says.

Haruto frowns and stares into Jesse’s soul. He lets go of the steering wheel and turns on autopilot for the rest of the conversation. “Kissing me and...doing  _ other _ things with me better be consuming your entire  _ being _ since we are on this date together, clearly both interested in each other, in close quarters on this private aircraft mind you, and you clearly  _ do _ want to be making out right now, but also  _ won’t _ .”

“Now we’re doing more things. In my brain.”

“...”

“Aw… sweet peach. Haruto, I swear I’ll tell ya soon, please don’t pout like that. Oh my god,” Jesse says. He starts nervously scratching the stubble on his chin. “This is our first fight. And it’s on a flight, which I think means we’ve just qualified the whole ‘fight or flight’ thing. Looks like it can be fight  _ and _ flight, huh. Sorry, that joke was awful. What does that mean for the psychology community though? Oh my god, also I hope this don’t make me a bad person. I don’t know how to compromise with you on this like we’re supposed to. Can we talk more about how we’re feeling?”

Their first fight--and it was over something really stupid. Everything had gone smoothly so far, Jesse thought. 

After finishing up as much of dinner as they could (and handing Esther another grand tip for the service like she deserved), they had even gone over to the band kids and chatted them up for a bit. Most of them were home for the summer after attending university out of state, and not all of them were doing band for a living. Which was cool. Kids in Alaska deserved a future. These kids specifically though. One of them played a mean clarinet, and it didn’t take a music appreciator to see that.

But yeah. And then esse and Haruto had driven to the airport just fine. Smooth sailing.

And then they had gotten through security without even going through security, Haruto handed someone his ID, and the security guard looked like she had just seen a ghost three times to Thursday. Like, mega freaked out. Jesse just tagged along for the ride--they skipped the line anyways and just walked through one of the employee entrances. There wasn’t even a regular passenger line to be skipped, there weren’t any planes leaving at that hour.

One thing Jesse didn’t expect though, was Haruto owning a pilot license. Sure, it kind of made sense considering all of the other ritzy stuff he was into like ‘naked oysters’ or whatever. Ok, fine. It was on brand. And he couldn’t really complain because now that Haruto was a pilot, he suddenly liked pilots or whatever.

Like lemon oysters. That was new.

What was also surprising to someone that had never been in the co-pilot seat like Jesse, was that airplane pilots were on the radio every 20-30 minutes for a check-in with the closest Air Route Traffic Control Center (just Center for short). That made sense too--there was a need to direct air traffic when there weren’t any public highways in the sky or whatnot. At least--not yet. It brought them back into reality every once and awhile.

The radio buzzed from overhead. “Haru 01, contact Vancouver center on two-four point seven-one.”

Haruto passed Jesse the mic. “Want to take this one?” he asks as he changes the radio frequency to 124.71 and points to a device that displays their height above sea level. Jesse hadn’t taken any calls yet, but had asked Haruto a billion questions about pilot speech (which was pretty on brand, he was a curious guy). So he kind of knew what to say. He took a jab at it.

Jesse turns the mic on. “Vancouver Center, Haru 01 at flight level three-two-zero”.

They were about 34,000 feet in the air on the first and only aircraft registered to Haruto Tanaka (nickname: Haru). Jesse handed Haruto the mic back. 

“Not bad,” Haruto says. “For a beginner.”

“Hey now, not all of us have a goddamn pilot’s license,” Jesse replies. 

Haruto smirks. “Alright, you win. For now.”

They continue chatting about everything and nothing as they are cleared to start their final descent into the Victoria area. Earlier that night, when they had been crossing a body of water, it had been extremely dark. They were so high up that the waves looked stationary. Jesse felt himself relax after they had started to fly over Canada, and he could clearly see people keeping their lights on well into the night.

They ended up continuing their haphazard game of 20 Questions, which was just a billion questions really, Jesse had lost count, to pass the time. Apparently Haruto liked to eat sweet things and hated tacky clothing. Yesterday had been an acception though, he said. There weren’t too many people available that could sew together a decent outfit, he said. Jesse called bullshit on that one, namely because if tacky was the game then the masquerade ball really only encouraged such behavior.

Which reminded him.

They left their glasses on the table back at the Crow’s Nest.

Oops.

“Would you like to be famous and in which way?” Jesse asks after recounting an embarrassing tale. The one where he brought a wild animal to a New Year’s party at the office. (Sorry Jack).

Haruto practically laughed at that one. “I’m already famous, sort of. What’s the phrase you Americans like to use? Chicks dig me, fish fear me?”

“I’m pretty sure that’s just Esther,” Jesse says.

Right.

“Would you learn to fly if you could?” Haruto asks.

Jesse has to think about that one, but his automatic gut instinct is no. There was too much going on at ground level already, he didn’t want to think about what sort of messy situations he would get into with Overwatch if he registered himself as a pilot. Lena Oxton could take all the glory. 

“Nah,” Jesse says. “Sky’s just not for me. Besides, if you’re high up and I’m down low, something tells me we’d make a great pair. Where’d you learn to shoot?”

“It was required of my family, mostly. Though we didn’t play that silly darts you Americans cherish, my brother and I were both drilled in archery. Though I had more success. My brother much preferred to swing around kendo sticks, which was much to the dismay of... just myself. My parents were always lenient with him,” Haruto says. “How is your relationship with your parents?”

“Not great,” Jesse says. “If I ever saw my dad now, I’m sure I’d just punch him for being absent from my life. Bastard. Course I grew up with my ma, but got messed up in gang life pretty early on. It fucked me up, ‘course I’ve figured out most of my mental health stuff over the years. It left me pretty damn stupid though, didn’t know anything when I was picked up with these two buff military guys I consider my dads now. Did I ever tell you one of them made me read this soulmate textbook when I was 17 years old? ‘Course I don’t think I appreciated a lick back then. Going through health class at 17. But I like to think it’s saved me from a few things here and there. Which reminds me, do you have any expectations for yours?”

“My what?”

“Soulmate.”

“Ah. Maybe someone that will actually kiss me for a change.”

Haruto laughs, but Jesse felt that pierce his heart. Way to stab a guy. Maybe Haruto was actually a killer after all. At least, a metaphorical one. He was almost definitely a literal killer with his affiliations to the Shimada clan. ‘Those dudes are vicious’, to quote the combination DJ, Dart Game Attendant, California boy from the Ren Faire. (Yes. Jesse went back to interview him after getting some stories from Chrissy, the bumble fairy. An interview as an interview, a perspective was a perspective. Though some interviews were certainly more valid than others).

“But in all seriousness, the years have come and gone. Whether spring will ever come for me now is unlikely, so I enjoy the time I have. Even if I did meet with my soulmate, one day, I am not completely sure if I would deserve them in my life,” Haruto says. “I believe incriminating those around me, just by nature of being in their company, is enough damage. I am not clean. I would much rather go down alone. And obviously, Joel, you haven’t met yours yet or I doubt would would be wasting time with me. What exactly would you say to them if you ever met them?”

Jesse feels the mark on his left hand tingle, and he is desperate to resist pulling it off. It itches, burns almost. He decides to sit on it in hopes of the sensation going away. 

The radio turns on again, requesting to speak to the pilot again. Haruto answers and they are cleared for a runway down at the IKEA in Victoria. Jesse starts cleaning up the dinner remainders and puts everything back where it belongs. He stares into the bag like it was an 8-ball. Except if he shakes it, he would just get food on himself instead of answers. Haruto focuses on landing the plane.

“You’re enough,” Jesse finally says.

“Excuse me?”

“I’d tell them that they’re enough,” Jesse says.

Haruto chuckles before taking hold of a lever on the interface separating them. If this plane was a car, it would be in the same position as a stick shift. Jesse sees Victoria’s city lights get smaller as they approach the runway, which is devoid of any air traffic. It’s just them. All alone. At 4:30AM.

Jesse wondered why this IKEA had an air terminal, which must have been new. He couldn’t put a finger on when it could have been installed because he was technically banned from this part of Canada, and because the last time he visited was ages ago. Of course, he was also technically banned in most states, and a bunch of other countries as well. So it didn’t bother him too much. Besides, getting banned from several countries never did stop him from visiting anyways.

The plane landed smoothly, and Jesse felt himself get rammed into his chair as the airplane slowed down, and the pressure just nailed him. But eventually they reached a casual speed of 20pmh. Haruto must have practiced this a billion times.

Someone with one of those large glowing sticks directed them to a docking space behind the building, and they slowly made their way around. Good thing too, ‘cause they were pretty low on fuel at this point.

Haruto parked, and they were nestled between a few crates labeled ‘ POÄNG ’. If Jesse remembered correctly, those were IKEA’s signature chair that they remodelled every year with new fabrics and minute alterations to the design.

They unbuckled their seats and began unloading off the plane. A final message greeting them after landing played on the radio, to which Haruto relayed a ‘thank you’.

As they got off, Jesse was surprised that there wasn’t anyone around. Jesse wondered where the hell the person with the glowing sticks went too. It’s like they disappeared into thin air. 

There was a breeze outside, Victoria never got too hot even in the summer. Which is why certain Canadians sometimes had trouble abroad when they went to visit places in tropical climates. Jesse didn’t know--he was the opposite. Cold really fucked with him. And it was also why a lot of rich Canadians chose to retire there. Victoria was like that.

They started walking around the building and stopped when they were at the front doors. The lights were on but no one was inside. Something was really off at this point.The building wasn’t as large as the other IKEA’s. In fact, Jesse wasn’t sure that the logo was put on correctly.

Haruto got out his phone and started typing away to double check that they had navigated to the right one. The coordinates were close enough to the ones they were supposed to visit but--now that he really thought about it… there wasn’t any sort of activity under it or anything besides the number. The photo didn’t even look exact, either.

Jesse spots a flash on top of a near building from the corner of his eye, small enough to be dismissed but large enough to be notable. That’s when he saw the silhouette of a figure stand, completely obscured by the moon behind them.

“SNIPER!” Jesse screams. 

Haruto tackles them both to the floor.

A bullet crashes through the entrance door, and the glass shatters.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dont worry theyre ok LMFAO
> 
> next tiem: showdown with talon? i THINK. I HAVE 2 FIGURE IT OUT ive never rlly written a fight scene


	11. Set Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a brawl with Talon at IKEA, cheers loves

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw ovw canon typical violence in this chapter, and then a little bit of medical stuff/wound descriptions later on bc someone gets hurt(its not bad tho)
> 
> to all of you that were so excited for ikea, im so fucking sorry i did this to u. im sorry. ur gonna have to hold on for that one. tags modified for this chapter!
> 
> EDIT: edits made to mark description towards the bottom so the mark itself is a lil clearer

“ _ Kuso _ ,” Hanzo says.

He grabs Joel’s hand and they make a break for it. He should have seen it coming. It was stupid. 

There’s no way in hell this is how he’d go down.

Hanzo hadn’t second guessed the convenience of the landing pad, sure. It had been awful convenient and all, but now that he thought about it, Victoria didn’t have an IKEA. If there had actually been an IKEA in the area, he would have visited the last time he was here. He had been so consumed in this little date that he hadn’t done a usual background check. Hadn’t called anyone. Hadn’t made sure it was an actually  _ fucking _ store front. 

He was setup like amateur. 

What did they pay him for, anyways? But that left other questions.

Where had the information been leaked? Where had his location been compromised? This is why he had cleared out the entire restaurant floor, and personally hired everyone that was going to be there sans the chefs because they weren’t in radius to hear any conversations. So… where?

He remembered the plague doctor at the press party… but it couldn’t have actually been…

_ No one hides from my sights _ .

“Talon,” Joel gasps as they run towards the back of the building. 

“TALON?” Hanzo screams. 

Talon--Hanzo knew Talon. They were the group of operatives the Shimada family elders had come to know and trust as of late, especially for hit jobs. They had come in handy every once and a while when the family needed a job done across the globe and there were other things going on that week. They had a sniper with purple skin that went by Widowmaker. They had a woman that hacked into secure systems that went by Sombra. They had a tall man that liked to dress up as the grim reaper… he went by Reaper. Hanzo had to give it to him, that was one hell of a creative name. Widowmaker and Sombra at least tried to make a decent moniker. Reaper was kind of lazy.

They make it towards the back of the building which was littered in  Poäng  crates. About 20 Talon goons started to emerge from the boxes like zombie movie extras, except this wasn’t a fucking zombie movie, this was supposed to be a fun night out. He had just meant to take a handsome man out, not ‘take out’ a bunch of enemies in the process. But it looks like they would have to fight their way towards the plane if they had any chance of escaping alive.

He heard a gun click behind him and turned around to see Joel pull a pistol out of nowhere somehow. He lets go and puts a step of distance between them. No, no. No, no, no…

This wasn’t happening.

Joel couldn’t have been after him too… right?

“Relax, it’s just me. Don’t ask why I came armed,” Joel says. Hanzo sees him take off the safety and reload the gun faster than he’s ever seen  _ anyone _ take off the safety and reload a 6 barrel before.

They dive behind an empty  Poäng crate to miss oncoming fire. The bullets couldn’t pierce through the wood, thankfully. But with Widowmaker’s Infra-Red sight, everyone knew where they were hiding anyways.

“You brought a GUN and stuck it in you PANTS? I invited you to a date and you  _ weren’t _ JUST HAPPY TO SEE ME THIS ENTIRE TIME?” Hanzo says. Gods. GODS.

“Nah, still was. I was hiding this gun thing up my sleeve,” Joel says. He quickly peers over the top of the crate and shoots clean through some of the goons’ weapons. Some of the Talon goons drop to the floor for cover and some try to run away because their pistols are now broken, but there are still plenty left. One of them tries to rush Hanzo and Joel behind the crate, and Hanzo tackles him to the ground and unarms him before the guy can do any damage.

Hanzo punches his lights out before securing the gun and tossing away the body.The guy’s not dead just… quite incapacitated at the moment. And he was taking up room behind the crate. Joel looks oddly impressed.

“Wow, you know, I knew I’m the quick but it looks like you’re the quicker,” Joel says. Joel lands a few more debilitating shots on the enemies and reloads his gun. The goons were scattering.

“This is  _ no _ time for chatter, Joel!” Hanzo says. He quickly takes the new gun in his hands and shoots at another enemy. 

Another body down.

They see Widowmaker make her way to a building across the street from where they are with her grappling hook. There was still the matter of the sniper. Hanzo was royally damned that he didn’t bring his fucking bow. What archer from the Shimada family left for an insecure area without their bow? It was stashed in pieces scattered around his hotel room. Even if they made it to the plane, the bow was practically useless. It was hours away.

Widowmaker makes a shot and it smashes clean through part of the crate. Not good. Very not good. The wood makes an awful noises as it cracks.

“This way!” Joel says. He takes Hanzo’s hand and they dash behind the plane. Widowmaker’s rifle was tough, but it couldn’t pierce through the heavy duty metal of a small aircraft.

_ Clang. Clang. Clang. _

They were being pelted with bullets.

Joel tried to shoot the remaining Talon goons from the nose of the aircraft, but Widowmaker shot his gun out of his hand. 

“Shit,” Joel says. He quickly recuperates the gun, but a chunk of it split clean off. That would be a hard repair.

“Ok, uh, ok,” Hanzo says. He quickly smacks his hands against his face to see if it can jolt him to come up with any solutions. They can hear footsteps as Talon goons start converging to their area from the  Poäng crates. All in one area. That gave him an idea. 

And if this didn’t work, everything would surely go to shit. Hanzo grabs Joel’s hand.

“Joel, listen to me. We’re royally fucked if we mess this up. Take my gun,” Hanzo says. “Hold it with both of your hands, this is going to have a shit ton of recoil.”

“This peashooter thing?” Joel says. The gun is shit compared to his own, but he takes it with both of his hands. “Where am I aiming?”

They move quickly to the center of the small private aircraft, and Hanzo tells Joel to aim directly perpendicular to the shell of the plane. 

“Ain’t that just gonna ruin the metal and not actually hit noone?” Joel says with no clear sense of urgency.

Hanzo reaches over him and puts his hands over Joel’s, much like he had done at the pottery studio except this wasn’t supposed to be fucky sexy or provocative. He wasn’t trying to impress anyone or subtly instigate more physical contact than was strictly necessary just for the hell of it. Because someone had caught his eye. Tight pants. He hated saying that.

Hanzo had about 10 seconds to explain himself.

“You’re going to feel a surge of electricity through your arms and it might feel like you are on fire, but you are NOT going to be on fire so long as we keep close contact. Listen closely. I’m going to say something that sounds like an incantation and there is really no time to  _ actually _ explain this. When I say  _ kurau _ , you’re going to shoot. Understand?” Hanzo says. 

“Uh, that’s kind of weird. How’s that gonna w”--

“ _ YOU’RE JUST GOING TO HAVE TO  _ TRUST _ ME, _ ” Hanzo screams.

“YESSIR,” Joel says back.

_ Ryuu ga waga- _

Joel puts his finger on the trigger, and starts to feel some sort of energy rush to his hands. It’s difficult keeping his hand on the pistol, but Haruto presses down and makes sure he doesn’t let go. He doesn’t let go. He takes a deep breath as he hears the footsteps of Talon converging towards their location slow down. Time slows down.

_ Teki wo- _

Joel can feel electricity at his fingertips, like when he sits on top of the dryer too long and then all of the socks start sticking to him because he’s negatively charged. It’s like that except about a billion times worse, he can feel the negative ions practically pulling at the air around them. If there was a storm right now, Joel would have been completely scared of getting hit by thunder.

_ KURAU! _

Joel shoots, and he feels the discharge. It stings. But the bullet materializes into two large blue twin dragons that start destroying everything in their path. And the roar--at least, he thinks it’s a roar. The dragons tear straight through the airplane, and then start consuming their enemies. The goons start to drop as some of them start to scream in pain, and some of them fall straight on their backs as soon as they are hit by the moving dragons.

Joel’s seen lights. Low lights, spot lights, the Northern Lights. Now, fate hadn’t always been the kindest to him, but he had never really seen anything quite like this. He spots Widowmaker from the corner of his eye, she looks like she has dropped her gun and is covering her ears. So that roar. It must have been pretty loud. But Jesse didn’t really hear anything substantial. 

What he heard was almost akin to a purr, of sorts. Almost like cats that wanted food were whispering in his ear. Cats that wanted to play with the human, cats that had just brought the human an offering which was just a dead mouse. But a dead mouse from them. And they wanted the human to thank them for all the trouble. Joel muttered his thanks under his breath almost instinctively, not knowing what else to do.

He had never seen anything else like it in his life. The dragons cleared out a hole in everything. He felt the spark leave his body, and he dropped his hands. Hanzo let go and Joel dropped his gun. It made a  _ clink _ when it fell to the floor.

“What was… what were those?” he asks incredulously. 

Hanzo sighs, and nudges Joel down so he can rest his chin on Joel’s shoulder. “My dragons. Soba… and Udon. They run in the family, and I named mine when I was a child, so they are not the most elegant sounding beasts.”

“Uh,” Joel says. He turns his head so he is directly facing Hanzo. The two look at each other in curiosity. “Can we do that again sometime?”

Hanzo gets off and then pats his shoulder. “Sure… I’m sure they’d like that,” he says. “They don’t get out much.”

And everything seemed alright for a moment, but the night was far from over.

Widowmaker gets up from the soundblast, her legs like those of a baby fawn. She tries to get up. She wasn’t giving up. She had targets to apprehend and she wouldn’t give up just yet. With her remaining strength, Widowmaker takes a small handgun from her side pocket, and aims her grappling hook towards the remaining tailend of the Haru 01. She rappels forwards almost instantaneously and flies towards them.

“AH!” Joel screams he sees Widowmaker try to rush them.

Now, before Jesse got any ideas about showing off, there was a reason why he was a popular choice for recon missions. There was no need to draw any attention to himself, even during moments that seemed like they didn’t matter, so he played it smart. 

Or at least tried to, before he reached deep inside himself and said ‘fuck it’. 

He pulls the neon orange plastic snake from the Darts Game out of his other sleeve, the snake he had kept safe this entire time until an emergency required its presence, and flung the damn thing at Widowmaker as she hit the pavement. 

He saw it hit something invisible.

“Yee-AH! SNAKE!” an invisible voice went. Jesse saw purple glitches in the air before he saw the one person he thought he’d never see again materialize, literally, out of thin air.

Sombra, otherwise known as Olivia Colomar, was the world’s most notorious hacker. From a young age, she was known to hack into government systems for underground information she would sell to support her family back in Mexico. As a child prodigy, no one could catch her. Jesse always wondered where she went off after their run-ins when Jesse had been on Deadlock. They had become friends through the thick of it, actually. And he still had her number for dire situations, but those hadn’t come up as much nowadays. 

Sometimes when he was on recon and needed a tip or two to sneak into an exclusive event or something, he would send a message her way and then pay for the service by tracking down whatever target she needed to get a hold of. But today? He hadn’t expected to see her  _ here _ of all days.

It was like everyone and their mothers and their cousins twice removed were in Victoria, Canada today.

Sombra struggles on the floor momentarily and crashes into Widowmaker. Sombra keeps screaming while Widowmaker just grunts and tries to push her out of the way. 

“Sombra?” Jesse says. “What the hell are you doing here of all places?”

Sombra realizes that the snake is plastic and throws it with anger at the ground as she gets back up off the floor. “ _ Jessito _ . Que pasa, amigo?” she says as she dusts herself off.

“What is she saying?” Hanzo asks ‘Joel’.

“Ah, you brought a friend. What are you doing with the leader of the Shimada clan, Jesse McCree?” Sombra says, trying to buy herself some time.

Hanzo looks at Jesse, and Jesse looks at Hanzo. 

And then they look at each other some more.

“You WHAT,” they both say in unison. 

Widowmaker hits them both with her Venom Mine, and it spurts a noxious purple fume as it hits the floor. Behind the group, there is a cloud of black smoke that erupts out of the ground. Hanzo recognized that as the call sign to Reaper, otherwise known as the man behind Talon itself. He and Jesse start coughing while Reaper pushes them out of the way before tackling Sombra to the ground.

Everyone hears the burning of rubber on the road, and an engine. There was a small van approaching from the road to their right, and whoever the driver was flooring it. Sombra knocked Reaper’s mask loose and in the moment of confusion, she uses her invisibility cloak and starts dashing before the van gets there. 

Widowmaker throws her pistol at Reaper’s face as well, starts scramming towards a corner of the building so she can rappel to safety.

Jesse and Hanzo try to run towards her but she’s just too damn fast and they’ve been slowed down by the Venom Mine. They wheeze and ultimately collapse while trying to hold on to each other. The van drives up to them and does a tailspin into a perfect parallel park right next to them.

She starts honking La Cucaracha.

Tracer rolls down the van windows. “Cheers loves! The cavalry’s here! Though maybe a tad late. Get in the back for med attention you two. And you, Reaper, would you be a dear and help them?”

Reaper grunts as he walks over to Jesse and Hanzo, who are gripping each other’s shirts by the sleeve. They looked utterly pathetic on the ground.

“Get up,” he says. 

Jesse groans but gets up eventually, he would recall that voice anywhere. He feels like he’s seen a ghost, because he was really at the end of his rope here. 

“Gabe?” Jesse says, with half lidded eyes. He continues coughing. Maybe it was just the Venom Mine induced delirium. 

“Yeah…” Reaper says. He shakes his head and fiddles with the tufts of hair on his forehead. “I figured it was high about time I told Jack… I was back… in black.” Well,  _ Gabe _ says. Gabriel Reyes says. He looked much like he looked years ago, except now he had scars on his face from who knows where. And the whole wraith, black smoke thing would just have to wait, too. Jesse didn’t know what that was about, really. Gabe tries to help them stand up, but Jesse and Hanzo can’t do anything more than wobble.

“Who’s.... This?” Gabe asks, eyeing Hanzo.

“Long”--Jesse yawns--”Story. Let’s get in the damn van.”

They slowly start to make their way into the van, and they can’t really manage more than a hobble. Gabe helps Jesse in first, but he looks pretty out of it. Jesse has trouble getting one step in front of the other, kind of like if his vision were compromised or something. Hanzo has better luck moving in a straight line, but he still staggers over to the back of the van.

Now… there was just one thing left. Tracer wasn’t one to rush people, especially when they were being picked up from a barren field, but today was an exception with two of their assailants on the loose. Typically during loading time, she would just play with her nails or something, maybe even polish her pistols or play a game with whoever was in the shotgun seat that day. But today was a little different than that. She catches something happening from a building about a block away. 

Top of the building. The figure of a body.

“GO, LOVES! IN THE VAN!” she screams as she turns the key and revs up the engine. 

Widowmaker. 

She wasn’t down just yet.

There’s a gunshot and it misses its target significantly, but Hanzo gets knicked in the right shoulder and falls to the floor. He groans in pain. Gabe pushes the two men into the back of the van along with himself and shuts the door with a large slam. Tracer puts all of her weight onto the pedal and the van starts speeding back to the highway and they are out of there in a jiff, and before anyone else can sustain injury.

In the van, Hanzo lays on the floor, groaning as he tries to put pressure on the wound. Ana Amari puts down her tea and immediately starts rifling through her things for some gauze and tools to remove the bullet in the off chance it lodged itself in his shoulder. Men. Always complaining about pain. She half considers taking him out with a sleeping dart, but her supply was limited and she didn’t want to waste any.

“Take his shirt off,” she says while she busies herself. “I need access to the point of injury.”

Jesse does such. He tries to undo the little buttons from Hanzo’s dress shirt, but his gloves get in the way. He takes the damn things off and flings them over to a corner, and they hit Gabe square in the face.

“Hey,” Gabe says. He looks at the gloves, and sees that they’re this old brown leather. Some things never changed, his boy still wore the damn gloves Gabe got him for his 21st birthday. Still fit the bastard, too. What a time to be taking a trip down memory lane.

Jesse doesn’t spare him the attention. He takes Hanzo’s shirt off and pulls the sleeve over Hanzo’s arms. Without thinking, he touches the small wound on Hanzo’s shoulder, like he could do anything at all to stop the bleeding.

Hanzo hisses.

“Now, now,” Ana says. She shoos Jesse away and starts going over Hanzo’s shoulder with disinfectant. The wound wasn’t bleeding that much and after closer inspection, didn’t look that bad at all. It looked more surface than anything, but it was still a bit of a gash. No bullet entry whatsoever. 

Widowmaker must have been getting rusty, because… this was truly a pathetic attempt at a shot. Unless… this came from that miniature pistol she had. Those were much harder to aim than sniper rifles. Not bad, even if the shot hadn’t done much damage.

A simple gauze would do. She wraps up Hanzo’s left arm and then uses a medical adhesive to secure the bandage strip. 

Ana then opens up a health pack, and it starts a healing circle in the back of the van. She would guess that it was enough to take care of the wound since it was so trivial, and since the poison was only from a single Venom Mine, that would get cancelled out too.

Jesse felt himself come back to his senses after letting himself bask in the health pack circle and feels himself become no longer delirious from Widowmaker’s secondary weapon. He sighs as he hears Hanzo do the same. Ana, concluding that her job is done, starts packing up the equipment and then gets back into the shotgun seat of the van. She resumes her knitting like nothing happened.

“Aw, looks like everyone’s patched up just fine,” Tracer says. “Anyone want some tunes?”

“Me,” Gabe confesses.

Hanzo slowly gets up off the floor, and simply looks at Gabriel with the most tired eyes possible. Gabe shrugs, not knowing what the hell Hanzo Shimada was doing in the back of an Overwatch vehicle.  _ He _ certainly wouldn’t get in the way of Gabe’s tunes.

Tracer flicks on the radio and a classic by the Killers starts playing--Mr. Brightside.

_ It started out with a kiss, _

_ How did it end up like this? _

_ It was only a kiss, _

_ It was only a kiss. _

_ And now she’s calling a cab. _

Tracer turns the radio off. 

“I think that’s enough, nevermind. Cheers luvs, the mathematics,” she says. Well that was highly coincidental. A little too coincidental considering she was driving a van, that was basically a glorified cab at this point. And Mr. Brightside was Gabe fan favorite, which was enough to turn the damn thing off. That thing was rustier than the dinosaurs from the Cretacious era. And probably coincidental in other ways too, she just didn’t know it yet.

Hanzo starts to chuckle, but then he sighs and covers his face with his hands. He feels his eyebags. He feels memories that he was never a part of.

First he can tell he is young, because all of the adults around him are extremely tall. He’s on a tiny rocking horse, while a woman he supposes is Jesse’s mother is cooking dinner. Next, Hanzo is a little taller, but not that much taller. He’s doing his math homework in grade school, but doesn’t know how to do it as well as his classmates. That was a little embarrassing. His own family never spared him the luxury of failing any classes. 

The next thing Hanzo knows, he’s in the middle of a country showdown, like in the old Hollywood movies. He is reaching for his gun so he can fight a woman with crisp white hair and a similar cowboy hat. She looks at him with utter disgust, like she holds a grudge against him. By the ages of his compatriots, Hanzo guesses Jesse was about 15 at the time. 

Next, Hanzo’s sitting in a meeting where a man that looks an awful lot like Reaper but a hell of a lot cleaner, is telling him he needs to meet with a doctor named Angela, much to the chagrin of a peer with a barret. Next, he’s playing himself at the darts stall with the squire boy, except this time he’s in Jesse’s shoes. He feels his hand intentionally miss, and hit the rim of the board on purpose. So his initial guess about Jesse faking it was right. And then Hanzo regains power over his own mind, and comes back to the present.

He feels a surge of warmth on his right shoulder, but this time it’s not his dragons waiting to be released and he is sure it is  _ not _ from the injury either. Hanzo looks down and sees the partial hand print form underneath the gauze and bandage. It looks like... the top of Jesse's fingers. Or like... small mountains. He looks at Jesse, who is sitting in a corner of the van, looking back at him.

“You…” Hanzo starts. He tries to look into Jesse’s eyes, like they could have held all of the answers. But they simply didn’t. “You didn’t tell me on purpose. Why?”

Jesse scratches his temples and opens his mouth to say something, but then he closes his mouth. And then he opens his mouth again, but then he closes it when he dismisses what he wants to say. And then he says ‘fuck it’ and starts talking anyways. He never learned.

“Well,” Jesse starts. “Let’s start over.”

Jesse clears is throat and holds out his right hand for a handshake. “Hi, my name is Jesse and I’m technically outlawed in 40 out of 50 states and most parts of Europe because of my previous gang affiliations and international hitman gig.”

Hanzo looked at him, then looked at Jesse’s hand, then looked at Jesse’s face again. And decides, hey, ‘fuck it'. He sighs and then takes Jesse’s hand in his own. They were touching directly, finally. His hand was like a heater. Too warm for its own good.

“My name is Hanzo,” Hanzo says. “And I’m the head of an international crime syndicate family, but don’t run away just yet because I’m actually trying to take them down from the inside”.

They shake. 

Gabe gets an emergency pack of popcorn he stashed in the van ages ago, and opens the bag. Good thing these babies never expired, or he’d be in some serious trouble right now. Nothing like preservatives. 

Ana and Tracer secretly start to listen in on the conversation, but silently pretend like they’re doing their own business. Tracer starts silently whistling to herself and connected the dots between Hanzo and Overwatch’s informant named Cake, and Ana keeps on knitting like nothing was going on. If it was one thing Overwatch loved, it was drama. Miniscule things would become gossip for weeks, and if this was big enough, maybe it’d last an entire year in the gossip circle.

“So,” Jesse said. He whistled to break the silence. “What was that whole thing about again”--Jesse made some vague jazzhands in the hair--”with the sniper?”

“I’ll answer this one, cabrón,” Gabe says. He’s glad that Sombra practically punched his mask off because that shit was hot on a summer’s day. He takes a bite out of his popcorn. “Your boy’s family, the Shimadas, asked us, Talon, to wipe him out for no longer wanting to be part of the damn operation. You see? And they paid us pretty well, too.”

Hanzo tisked. So his family had actually tried to dispose of him. But to actually hire Talon against one of their own… that was new. And brash.

“What are you doing here then?” Hanzo asks Gabe. “Wait, what the hell were you doing at the press party?”

Gabe shrugs again and then stuffs his face with more popcorn. Jesse squints his eyes at him, too. Gabe had to laugh at that one. “Well, listen. I’ve been keeping an eye on you, Shimada Hanzo. Direct orders from your elders. Except this little fucker”--Gabe points to Jesse--”just had to get involved. I saw you two at the darts game. Holy shit, you should have seen this kid’s face when you left him and he started doing that thing everyone does when they get touched by their soulmate and start tripping the fuck out for the memory montage. 

“He practically fell flat on his ass. And then the darts attendant, the squire guy, did you know his name is John Doe like for real? Hilarious. Gave Jesse that weird plastic snake thing he just threw at Sombra, who was the invisibility cloak woman, by accident I’m assuming. That certainly came in handy, huh?

“But the press party? Yeah, I was also just keeping an eye on you two since I stopped responding to my coworkers’ messages. I figured, hey, I can’t be involved in wiping out my kid’s soulmate. That’s way too mean, even for me. I still have a heart. And playing plague doctor also seemed fun at the time. So yeah. But then you two losers ran away to who the fuck knows where and I couldn’t catch up with you. Like right after the party. But like, now you're here at the back of this van. So whatever.”

Hanzo started doing some sort of math on his fingers, and then starting counting on his left hand, one by one. He didn’t know exactly what he was counting, but he was trying to look back and remember if he had seen Reaper anywhere else. People didn’t just sneak up on a Shimada like that. Extremely curious he hadn’t even felt anything, since he is typically a lot more aware of his surrounds than this. Jesse did something similar with his hands, except quickly ran out of fingers. Algebra wasn’t his style.

“So if you weren’t leaking to Talon,” Jesse says after a moment of collecting himself and trying to make sense of the situation. “How the hell did they know we’d come to this made-up store?”

“How did… they make the store in the first place?” Hanzo asks. He had to admit, the crates and crates of  Poäng chairs should have been a dead giveaway. IKEA stocked other things, too.

Gabe nods. “Yeah, I think it was Sombra actually. She stowed away on your plane in one of the back seats and I personally think what she did was hack the Vancouver ATCC, or Vancouver Air Traffic Control Tower. She then just started sending you fake messages from voice generators over the radio, but they were actually being transmitted from inside your plane. Isn’t that messed up? I have no idea how Widowmaker got the goons to show up though behind this fake pop-up though.

“I think they might have guessed that you Hanzo, might have just eventually gotten bored with the lack of good cake in Alaska and would fuck off to the nearest IKEA at some point. I wasn’t part of that. Sombra keeps some weird ass info. She probably set up that fake IKEA page too so it would show up on Google Maps as an actual location. Idk when they started the construction of the fake building though. Not me.”

“How the hell would we have protected ourselves from an invisible stowaway from the inside of our private plane?” Hanzo asks Jesse.

Jesse shakes his head. “Not a damn clue.”

“Oh wow, did you just say ‘our’ like you two owned that blasted plane? Wow,” Gabe says. He continues munching on the popcorn. Ana chuckles from the front seat, and Tracer does as well. 

Oof.

“Wait… why are any of you here?” Hanzo asks. He assumed everyone was Overwatch, then. Tracer was a dead giveaway, especially since she had been Overwatch’s primary poster girl for so many years. But it didn't make any sense how… they had just shown up without any warning. There was so much happening right now.

“Loves, I’ve got this one,” Tracer says from the front seat. “Jesse, as the new mission leader, Hana turned on the automatic tracking feature for your comm. After you woke up this morning, or was it yesterday? Before you left for dinner, Hana set it so your comm would just send your location back to Overwatch’s Gibralatar base every half hour. We saw you start move out of the country and thought you were being kidnapped or something, so we rushed over. Reaper found us and decided to tag along too, hey? What a charmer. 

“Ana told me she booked a private jet from Anchorage to get here before you--she slid into my DM’s with a ‘you need to find me right now’ and I picked her up from the airport a couple hours ago. We all started to triangulate your flight after the first few comm clicks. Lucky Hana forwarded your single check-in message, too. You weren’t that hard to find, dear. You could have made it all a lot easier, though.”

The group sat there in silence as Tracer continued driving down the highway, for miles and miles. Eventually they stopped at an obscure parking lot where they switch vehicles. It was just mission protocol, vehicles and routes were harder to track that way. The team shuffled into another van, but this one was all black. Gabe wholeheartedly approved. They kept on rolling.

It was about 8AM after a few hours of driving somewhere South West of Victoria. The sun was up now, and the stars were gone. They passed oodles of forest along the way, and even encounter a few moose crossings. Those were always fun. Not for Jesse though, because moose were like deer and deer didn’t like him.

Eventually, they made it to a hotel for the rest of the day, and Tracer went to check them in while everyone else stayed in the car. She messaged Jack for some importimu funds, and he sent them over.

“Jesse,” Hanzo says after a few hours of simply idlying by. He had removed his bandage since the wound was now properly healed due to nanite technology from the health pack. He was glad that the damage had not been extensive, trivial almost. He was tired from the ride, and didn’t want to think about what would happen next.

Jesse looks at him, confused at first, but then Hanzo points to the hotel with his eyes. It takes him a second, but he gets there eventually. Jesse goes ‘oh’ and is momentarily stunned into silence.

“Ok, look. Maybe I know how y’all felt when me and Jack were all over each other in public now. But quit undressing each other with your eyes because you are  _ still _ technically in a public space right now. At least a shared space. And you’re sharing it with me and Ana fucking Amari. Both of you quit it right now,” Gabe says. He crosses his arms. These damn kids. “Save it for later.”

Ana sighs and puts her knitting away. Another day, another adventure. She reaches into the glove compartment to check the expiration date on a secret stash of condoms that Overwatch operatives have kept stocked over the years, and then throws a few over her shoulder like she would salt. They condoms hit Hanzo in the back of the head. He picks them up and looks at the packaging.

Oh.

He looks at Jesse, and the bastard smiles.

Ok. 

Fine.

Whatever.

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next time: real IKEA! this is a teen rated fic
> 
> there are maybe ~2-ish chapters left as i cap off my nanowrimo novel! wahoo! s/o to all of my lovely comment-ers, i stan hearing from u. i also stan the bug fun facts, they made me feel really fun!


	12. Big D.Va's Dont Cry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> we go back to the center of the universe, IKEA, for more antics.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ** PLZ READ: ** hey everyone! So jsyk I've made the decision of removing the original chapter 12 from this work and bumping the rating down to teen. I think it's something I was originally excited to publish, but I ended up rushing it just to get it done quickly bc nanowrimo ends soon and I didn't put as much effort or care into it as I have everything else. So it came off as exceedingly nervous and anxious and didn't fit into the vibe I was trying to keep up for the whole fic.
> 
> It might come back some time as a spin-off or something tho. ty!
> 
> ITS IKEA TIME!

_ A handful of short weeks later. _

Hanzo Shimada shuts the car door and a valet comes to usher the car away into the parking lot. Jesse McCree gets out too because he had better things to do than wait in the car in an otherwise abandoned parking lot. It was about 6PM here in Spain, and Hana and Lucio were bound to fly back to Overwatch’s Gibraltar base in a few hours. 

A lot of things had happened in the last few weeks.

Hana and Lucio’s residence in Anchorage got extended until the UN took care of any… unsightly business. And for the most part they got to do all of the little tourist spots that Anchorage had to offer, namely a couple of trails and a ski lift and another trail and eventually they got so bored, they busted into one of the national parks dead at night and had to be escorted out by a park ranger. Jack laughed at that one. Amateurs. 

They reported back once a day, but most days there wasn’t anything more interesting than the Shimada clan member numbers declining a few heads at a time. That one group that they were supposed to trade with got intercepted before their boat could even set sail, and the Shimadas were left hanging on that one. The Ren Faire was over, and most of the citizens have returned to normal life, unfortunately. Everyone (re: Overwatch) was surprised that the UN was effective at all this time, but that surprise was more than welcomed. The citizens didn’t think anything of it. Play time was over.

Lucio sometimes snapped back really bad sketches he had done of local people, which made one of the secure Overwatch chats erupt with laughter each time. The man was highly artistic and incredibly musically gifted, but he couldn’t draw for shit. Hana as well. She could fix a motorbike and perform maintenance on her bunny-shaped MEKA, even design the occasional upgrade blueprint for Torbjorn when he needed to outsource some work, but couldn’t make it past a couple of stick figures. Art was always harder than it seemed.

But, yeah. So they were off base. And that left room for a lot of trouble. A lot of trouble for Jesse and Hanzo to be caught up in, actually. Which is why they had decided to go back to IKEA, the epicenter of the universe. There was just something about their furniture that attracted the masses. Hanzo, as a previous business mogul, liked to contribute to the success of the company to a psychological bias called the “IKEA effect”, which stated that humans value those things with which they build by hand more than those preassembled. 

The study was an interesting one, stating that the “IKEA effect” is something that is learned because it has no impact on small children. Children didn’t disproportionately place value on things they made vs things the didn’t make. And while Jesse agreed entirely, namely because half of his furniture had come from IKEA itself, he thought the store was still ‘just neat’, as Esther would say. Small children were hell spawn and somehow invincible to everything, even when they ate dirt straight off the ground.

Speaking of which, it was highly convenient that there was an IKEA under an hour away from Overwatch’s base. Extremely convenient, in fact. So convenient, that Hanzo took extraordinary measures to background check the place last week down to every nickle on the floor. That meant using Overwatch’s mainframe and AI, Athena, to obtain records detailing the information of every single employee IKEA had, and then snooping into every single person’s background.

He had uncovered a lot of things unintentionally, actually. Like some employees would lie about their previous retail experience just to get a job at IKEA, and Hanzo didn’t blame them. He heard the company had some great benefits and all of that jazz.

Jesse thought that this whole background check was highly excessive, but considering they almost got sniped right outside of a fake IKEA not too long ago, he understood why someone would want to be absolutely sure of everything before stepping into an IKEA ever again. It really _ was _ only playing it safe. Widowmaker, on the other hand, remained at large. No one knew how they were able to get that fake pop-up IKEA up and running. It disappeared within a week of their visit, turning into a regular dentist place or whatever since real estate moved fast over there.

Something else that Hanzo did was set up a meeting with this Spanish IKEA’s manager last week, someone by the name of Ricardo. Ricardo hadn’t recognized him, fortunately. Hanzo took to shaving his beard as well. And Jesse was kind of sad about that, but he agreed, beards were like clothes. And clothes made the man. And that man was sometimes actually an elaborate cover and not actually real. So sometimes the beard had to go.

Yeah.

Oh, but poor Ricardo. Hanzo slapped a fat wad of cash on the table and had looked Ricardo in the eyes and said something like ‘i am visiting the store at this day and this hour, please keep your employees on staff but make sure that no regular customers are allowed to enter. Or _ else _’. And it must have worked, because Ricardo was waving them into the store.

Hanzo stared at the man’s cheap pinstripe suit, deeming it atrocious but decent enough, and they were on their way. Ricardo had the most incredible smile just plastered on his face, like someone had threatened him. Obviously. Because that is basically what happened.

“Let’s visit the food court first”, Hanzo says.

“Oh no, not that blasted cake”, Jesse says. It’s the cake that got them into trouble in the first place, in more ways than one. Jesse assumed that’s how Hanzo got his alias when he wasn’t just Hanzo or Tanaka Haruto, but Overwatch’s resident informant, Cake with a capital C. Or at least, that’s what Winston used to call him. He signed off with the strawberry shortcake emoji. Odd but strangely fitting, all things considered.

They walk up to the cash register where there’s a guy standing there with a chef hat. He was typing away on his phone. Hanzo orders a princess cake, and Jesse doesn’t order anything.

“Wait a second,” Jesse says. The chef hat guy looks at Jesse with a funny face. He looked oddly familiar, in a ‘haven’t i seen your sorry ass before’ sort of way. Hanzo snaps a photo of the guy, and the chef grunts while he goes into the back to see if they have any more cake. Some bastard ordered the rest of the lot this morning, but he didn’t want to say no to such an important customer.

Their manager, Ricardo, had told them all to keep quiet and do whatever it was necessary for their special guests to walk away happy. And he wasn’t about to lose his job. This was like his 3rd job in a couple months, and he needed enough to pay his rent. Capitalism was a bastard like that. And he wouldn’t succumb to its evil clutches without a fight.

Jesse peered over Hanzo’s shoulder and saw that he was texting some sort of number based back in the US. 

_ Ping _.

Holy shit. 

“Well, well,” Hanzo says. “Jesse, I think we might have just reunited a family.”

The chef guy comes back with a princess cake served on a plate and a tiny fork. There was one hidden behind a stack of tomatoes in the stock fridge, and he was extremely relieved he didn’t have to say no to someone so important. Jesse squinted as he looked at the guy, and then put his hand out in front of him to obscure the lower half of the guy’s face. Wait a _ second _ . The beard _ did _ make the costume which made the man. Why, he looked _ exactly _ like someone else.

“What are you doing?” the chef guy asks. 

“By any chance do you realize you’re a father?” Hanzo asks. He hands his phone over to the employee and the chef guy looks at it. There’s a photo of John Doe next to a woman he recognizes, Jane Doe. The woman he had met ages ago when she was abroad for a university program. He looks wide eyed at the screen, and zooms into the face of the young adult that looks an awful lot like him. He hands the photo back to Hanzo, but is still shocked.

“I have a son?” he says. He blinks several times, and takes the chef hat off his head to scratch his balding scalp. “Jane… she never told me.”

Hanzo takes a pen out of the guy’s pocket and scribbles down John Doe’s contact information on a napkin before giving it to the chef guy.

“You should contact your boy, John Doe. I have reason to believe… he has been looking for you this entire time,” Hanzo says curtly. 

The chef guy takes the napkin and goes from surprise to exuberance, and he starts shaking Hanzo’s hand vigorously. 

“Wow! Who woulda thought, me? A father?” the chef guy says. “Oh man, am I lucky you two decided to pop in today. What a world! Let me know if you need anything, or a personalized tour of the Showroom or anything. Except right now I’m going to run to the nearest landline while screaming ‘I _ AM _ the Father!’ and hopes my boss doesn’t fire me or anything for being so disruptive, so I don’t think I’ll be of much help since you’ll probably be out of here before I finish my call. Holy _ fuck _. Ok, bye.”

The chef guy hops over the counter and starts running and screaming like he said he would. Jesse looks at Hanzo incredulously.

“How the hell?” Jesse says.

“John told us to keep an eye out for ‘someone that looks like me’ and ‘isn’t my mom’, so I thought we would both do such. My dear, it’s simple geometry,” Hanzo says. He picks up the princess cake and they start touring the Showroom in reverse order, starting with the Kids Section. 

Operation: Do Something Nice for Hana Because She Deserved Nice Things was in effect, and Jesse would be _ damned _ if wasn’t a success.

“So here’s the plan,” Jesse says. “ We need some sort of fun poster for her room, and maybe a really fun knick knack to put on her desk next to the chihuahua card her I got with pink letters that spell ‘Friends Furr-Ever’. I know we already got her a bunch of new wrenches and a drill and some other mechanical stuff Torbjorn and Bridgette said she needed, so we should be clear on that stuff. Oh, actually. She starred (haha, pun intended) on a short promotional Overwatch flick called Shooting Star once, maybe we should get her something star related and see if she gets it.”

“Jesse,” Hanzo says in between bites. “I doubt that anyone would get it if we got her celestial related objects, because those are so innocuous. But I like your thinking. What if we buy her some posters of her previous movie posters, and plaster her walls with them to remind Hana of her own success and talent?”

They make it to this little corner of the Kids Section with posters. IKEA must have been upgrading their stuff or something, because Jesse doesn’t remember the last time they were here. Maybe IKEA was trying something new and moving things around from the Marketplace. Whatever. Or maybe this was some sort of mistake that Ricardo forgot to correct. That was also a possibility.

“Huh, something tells me she wouldn’t want her guests to be surrounded of photos with her in it,” Jesse says as he starts rifling through the poster box. There were a bunch of pre-labelled tubes. Hey, there was Some Like it Bot. That was funny. Hey, there was even a Hero of the Storm poster, one of Hana’s movies. She was right on the cover with a lab coat and a pistol looking thing. Oh, Jesse had a huge proud moment. That was his adoptive kid, who wasn’t really adopted, just a random kid who also happened to be working at Overwatch at a young age.

The poster idea wasn’t bad and it was something they definitely could do. Jesse took out a scroll that contained the poster for the Six Gun Killer, a recent Hollywood production that actually depicted Jesse himself. 

It was one of those things that was produced right after his bounty had come out publicly, and Hollywood had completely changed his life story since there wasn’t much publically known about Jesse McCree anyways. It was kind of funny. The young actor that played him wasn’t nearly as handsome as he should have been. Or, at least Jesse thought. He had a little bit of self esteem after all, and Hollywood continued to stick to bland choices over the years.

Hanzo continued eating his cake, but took a poster scroll for a movie called Rise of the Omnics. They continued to shuffle through the Showroom, which contained a lot of little showrooms that were small open rooms with compact furniture lightened up tightly. Jesse thought it was incredible, but Hanzo preferred the showrooms in Japan because they had ‘more taste’ or something. Which was fine, all things considered.

They eventually made their way around to the living room area, and they find themselves in front of a wall lined with knick knacks of all sorts. There are little ceramic birds and tiny ceramic fish and small clocks and small geometric mirrors (Hanzo quite liked the ones that looked like hexagons) and small stuffed animals. 

“Oof”, Jesse says. “We would probably get her a bunny or something since she likes rabbits so much. I know her MEKA is a rabbit and stuff. I think that shows some serious dedication to rabbits. Her codename isn’t rabbit themed though, it just sounds like diva, so she’s definitely not obsessed with them though. Not as much as I’m obsessed with Western stuff.”

“Don’t remind me of those little wooden figurines you have in your room,” Hanzo says. “Those are incredibly tacky. I am sorry if that hurts your feelings, but I am trying this new invention called being honest. Do you think she would like this?”

Jesse looks at what Hanzo is holding. It’s a small ceramic dragon, painted in a baby blue color. It also is painted in streaks of white and pink, so it sort of looks like the trans flag but minus the flag part. Jesse gives it a thumbs up because Hana’s two main favorite colors are blue and pink. And white went with everything, so they had an excuse. And the trans flag was great, anyways. 

Jesse picks up a tiny ceramic figurine of a horse. It’s just red, and in mid gallop. Not bad for a knick knack. Hanzo gives him the thumbs up. Hanzo approved.

Considering their jobs done, the two walk down to the Marketplace, which is where IKEA stores all of the good stuff. It’s where IKEA keeps its lamps and candles and plants and other stuff since the Showroom floor was just to ‘show’ people what their home could look like. Hanzo also had a theory that is how IKEA remained so popular, like the Showroom was another psychological thing. Jesse agreed with that too, except he also just thought it was elaborate enough to earn another ‘just neat’. Esther lived on in their lives through copied speech patterns.

They pass the lamps. They pass the lamps and they can’t resist the lamps.

There are floor lamps and lamps that can be connected to a desk (and that could have been very useful if Hana was staying up late at night working on something) and there are large living room ceiling type lamps. One of the lamps catches Hanzo’s eye. It’s tall, rectangular looking, and looks like a giant paper lantern. Needless to say, he loads that lamp right into their cart without even consulting Jesse. Jesse spots a tabletop lamp with little cowboy boot cutouts all over the lamp shade, and loads that into the cart as well. Nothing like getting distracted at IKEA and buying more than strictly necessary.

They eventually make it to checkout and see the chef guy again behind the checkout counter.

“Fancying meeting you two here,” the chef guy says.

Jesse takes a look at his nametag and sees that the man’s actual name is Rich Dude. Someone’s grandpa must have mixed the mark there. But there was nothing like trying to set your kid up for success, Jesse thought. There was an attempt. Half right, dude.

“You and your son have more in common than you know, since neither I nor my partner expected to see you again”, Hanzo says as he loads the conveyor belt with trinkets and objects. “Your son, we met him. We saw him once and he came back to haunt us almost immediately, wearing a new hat for his new job.”

Rich Dude just kind of looks at him funny, like ‘what the hell is this guy saying’ funny, but checks them out anyways. He was in for a whole new world. The resemblance was uncanny. Jesse wondered if they could sponsor his plane ticket over to the buckass of nowhere: Anchorage, Alaska.

Once they are checked out, the only thing left was to drive home and beat Tracer’s plane. Jesse checks his phone for any new text messages, but there are none, so it was probably safe to say that neither Hana nor Lucio had made it back from Anchorage just yet. Once they were outside of the store in the parking lot, they said goodbye to the manager, Ricardo. Ricardo called one of his employees on their cell phone, and the valet came by with their car. Another employee helped them load up their things, even though that wasn’t strictly necessary.

“In and out,” Jesse says. “Just like that, huh?”

“Well, I am surprised weren’t warped into purchasing _ too _ much more than necessary, but I do hope Hana likes her new things,” Hanzo says. “Though something tells me that Operation: Do Something Nice for Hana Because She Deserved Nice Things (DSNHBSDNT) has turned into Operation: Buy Things Sarcastically (BTS) because we might have just purchased items that interested us specifically, and not ones that would interest Hana.”

Jesse sighed as he felt the wind hit his face. They were driving a car with an open roof. And it was luxurious, he had to say. Car rides like these on a summer’s night sometimes made the whole ‘im an agent at Overwatch, which technically is illegally running right now since we dont have explicit permission to be operating’ thing that much easier. So maybe they _ did _ just go into IKEA and get Jesse/Hanzo themed things. Maybe Hana would appreciate the thought. Or maybe she wouldn’t and just pawn things off to everyone else on base that didn’t have the time to visit IKEA once and awhile, even though it was only like 45 minutes away by car.

_ Garage 03 at Gibraltar base, late at night. _

Hana Song sighed as she patiently waited with Lucio in her garage. She had sticks up her hair, twigs down her sleeve, and things to fucking do. But if it’s one thing she wanted to do before going to bed and sleeping for fucking _ ever _, it was say hi to Jesse again. And meet his soulmate, after all. The bastard was practically part of the family now, and Jesse had really run off without telling her any of the details. None of Overwatch had given her any updates on what exactly the person was like.

Lucio sighs and starts kicking his legs. “What do you think he looks like?” he asks.

Hana waves her hand around, like she’s trying to kill a bug or something. “Probably not that handsome, let’s not get our hopes up for someone we don’t know.”

“So someone not handsome, someone with no money, no hobbies what so ever?” Lucio says. “Ok but maybe someone that can balance Jesse out just a little. Let’s hope he can do finger math or something because Jesse can’t count.”

“Ok, he can’t count but have you seen Jess derive sin times cosine divided by theta tan like two times in a row? I have no goddamn idea what he’s on, TBH,” Hana says. She yawns and starts plucking the twigs out of her hair. 

The last 24 hours back in Anchorage had been an absolute riot, and in the worst way possible. She had tried to sneak into one of the National Parks late at night with Lucio because there was only so much for young people to do back there. Of course, she had nabbed a bunch of awesome photos of Shimada agents being taken down. The mission was a resounding success, and Jack was extremely pleased with all of the information she and Lucio had collected. It looks like they were the next pick for recon missions, too. What a world.

Anchorage wasn’t bad for a recon mission too, she had to say. Sure, it was out there and no one knew what it fucking was before landing, but whatever. She had done much much worse and been to way way more boring places than Anchorage, of course. Bloomington, Indiana had to be known for _ something _. Sorry Jack Attack, that’s just how things were. Compared to Bloomington, Anchorage was basically New York. If Anchorage was New York, Bloomington was just a figment of some farm boy’s imagination.

Lucio starts beatboxing to himself to pass the time, when they hear car tires roll into the garage. Hana’s eyes open up so wide, she almost looks like a bug. She sees Jesse turn off the car and get out of the diver’s seat.

“Hey there little missus,” he says as he tips his cowboy hat. “Didn’t think you’d be back so early. Spoiled the surprise.”

“Luci-OOOOHHH!” Lucio says as he points to Jesse’s partner. He looked handsome, and probably had money, and probably had hobbies, and probably knew how to count. Lucio certainly stood corrected. “Hey! I’m Lucio, one of Jesse’s best friends, and this is Hana, practically Jesse’s kid but not really. We’re all kind of family here. Or fam, if you ask our Strike Commander Jack. Hana taught him how to say fam and now he won’t shut up about it, but I’m sure you know that already since you’ve been on base for a few weeks already.”

Lucio turns to Hana. “Hana, say something.”

Hana Song closes her mouth with the back of her hand and steps up to the car. She feels the brand new hood. 

It’s a pink Ferrari.

She looks up and spots Jesse’s partner smiling at her. Jesse quickly runs around the back of the car and hugs the guy from behind. 

“This is Hanzo Shimada,” Jesse says with his chin resting on Hanzo’s shoulder. “Hanzo, babe, say something.”

Hanzo tries to swat Jesse away, but realizes that Jesse is probably never going to let him go. Ever. He looks at Hana Song, who still wide eyed. She’s a young woman that looks like she’s seen much in the world, and will probably continue to see a plethora of things. She looks like she doesn’t know what to say, and she looks like she has everything to say. Hanzo has never seen a kid so perfect. 

“D...do you like your new car?” Hanzo says, stumbling on his words and after a pregnant beat of silence.

“AAAAAAAAH!” Hana screams. “GROUP HUDDLE!”

‘Group huddle’ always meant ‘group hug’ in her book at least. She hugs Hanzo who is surprised by the sudden contact. But he slowly hugs Hana back while Jesse hugs him, and Lucio comes in to join on the action as well. They group hug.

“I-I (sniff)... I… can’t wait to _ fucking christen this puppy _,” Hana says with tears in her eyes. She didn't like to cry that much in front of people, but sometimes it was more than necessary when you got a new goddamn car because you won that bet, Hana Song. You won that bet so hard and you didn’t even know you were going to win when you bet in the first place, but you did though. And that made it all the better.

“Lucio”, she says after wiping her face clean. “Can you connect to my car and play that one K-pop song we talked about on the plane ride?”

Lucio gives her a salute and starts pressing some buttons on his phone in some random but particular order. The pink Ferrari’s doors open up to look like rabbit ears since they rotate upwards unlike a regular car’s door, and Hana’s favorite song starts playing. Hello Bi+ches by CL, a previous member of 2NE1, fills the garage.

_My hips are pang-pang-pang _

_ Boys as time-time-time _

_ My lips are nyam-nyam-nyam_

“Ok wait”, Hana says before she looks at Jesse and Hanzo. “It’s been weeks… there’s no way you two haven’t… no… unless? Wait, don’t tell me.”

Jesse tries to bite Hanzo’s ear but gets jabbed in the ribs. And that said way more than it needed too, Hana had to say. Way too goddamn TMI, thanks I hate it.

“You know what?” Hana says. “I’m going to ignore this. I’m going to pretend that didn’t just happen. Ok. Now. Everyone leave your comms on base and get in losers, all of you, we’re going for a spin even though I don’t technically have a valid driver’s license.”

_Wherever I go dang-dang-dang _

_ Get on stage like jjan-jjan-jjan _

_ Run, run bangbangbang _

_ Disco, pangpangpang _

_ Hello, b*tches!_

They drive along the Gibraltar coast in Hana’s new pink Ferrari, practically screaming the lyrics to CL’s entire discography. The moon has now risen up high into the sky, casting light on everything that resides on the surface. And let's just say that the sky kind of winked. 

The end.

_ Diamonds on my grill and _

_ Who's gonna stop me, WHO? _

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next time: EPILOGUE! 
> 
> damn i cant believe this is almost over. thank god. who's gonna stop me WHO! licherally ive gone through a literal 100k-125k words of material just for this fic omg. the moral of the story is spend more than ~6 hrs editing ur outline before starting / don't decide last minute ur gonna nanowrimo like me. it comes back to bite ur ass.
> 
> LINKS:  
[pink ferrari with doors open](http://www.thesupercars.org/ferrari/pink-ferrari/)  
[hello b*tches by cl](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txKuI0xR0VA)


	13. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> we touch back on everyone one last time

Jack Morrison sighs as he enters the garage and flickers on the lights. He had been so lovingly disrupted from his beauty sleep by a large cacophony of noise that sounded like someone blasting kpop, and people screaming like they were in the middle of being murdered in cold blood. Athena, the multi-purpose AI, hadn’t said anything though. So maybe everything was ok. But he worried anyways, and came down after making himself a pot of coffee and pouring it into his favorite mug. World’s Okayest Dad. 

He sighs again when he sees the neatly stacked pile of comm devices on one of Hana’s workbenches. The scene of the crime was still hot. Someone had clearly just been here. He steps forward and looks at the devices closely. One of them is clearly Lucio’s because he’s stuck green frog stickers on his. And Hana’s done the same with bunny stickers. And one of the comm devices is brand spanking new, which means it must be Hanzo’s. And Jesse’s comm is scratched up to death. 

Gabe wrathes through the bottom of the garage door and greets him. He also has a mug of coffee in his hand, but this mug isn’t World’s Okayest Dad. It was modified to say World’s Okayest Emo Dad (with a black sharpie). So they were matching sort of in that way.

“Hey Jackie… I’m backie,” Gabe says while he smiles.

“You’re in a turtleneck,” Jack says almost indignantly. A lot had changed, but a lot had stayed the same. Maybe he would have to write a memoir one day.

“...It’s black though,” Gabe says. He drops a spoon with honey into Jack’s mug and they sit down on some bean bag chairs in a corner of the garage, deciding that they would have a stakeout until their runaway agents came back from wherever the hell they were.

Jack sips his coffee. These blasted kids of theirs. It wasn’t too late, but he knew that nothing good ever happened when someone blasted music so loud that the nearby walls started vibrating. So something had clearly transpired.

“Are you still mad at me?” Gabe asks while running his fingers through Jack’s thin bangs. They were both older now, Jack clearly having well defined lines on his forehead. But not to say they weren’t still kicking. Gabe found it incredible that Jack’s blond hair had gotten even thinner over the years, but it made sense. White dudes were just like that. 

“Yes and no but mostly yes,” Jack says.

“Wow! Someone’s touchy. You were always so on brand that sometimes my cadets back in Blackwatch liked to place bets on what you were going to say when you stopped by at our meetings,” Gabe says. “Do you remember when you kicked the door open one day and exposed our relationship to everyone? People were so shocked. Literally, so shocked. Me included. I actually thought you might have just been making a vine or something and double checked the place for cameras. And then I accidentally broke one of the potted plants. RIP to Charlie the fig tree. So then I stopped.”

“Your cadets?” Jack says. “Like the doctor O’deorain and Genji Shimada? What a time. Speaking about the Shimadas, imagine the chaos it would have caused if Hanzo had joined us back then. Well, maybe it would have cooled Jesse down, but. Hey.”

Jack, through the thick of it all and even though he loved Jesse immensely, thought that there was really only room for one obnoxious couple in town. Only one. And that brought him to Mission Code: GAY. He was so salty that Jesse had wrangled it out of him and ended up changing the database, he talked to Winston about it later. After some careful negotiating, Jack got serial numbers removed which meant mission codes were novel again. There could only be one GAY. Just one. And Jack let Jesse have it. It was time to pass the buck anyways. 

And then, of course, some time after that, Jack needed a favor from Genji. And Genji was still so tilted about the database that he wanted changes made so he could name a mission SUPERGAY. And Jack did the best he could, which meant giving Genji the exclusive naming rights to Mission Code: SGY. (Read: Super GaY). He was sorry he couldn’t offer Genji anything more than seconds.

“Do you remember this?” Gabe says. “Oh my god. One time, oh man, I’ll remember this forever. Jesse onced asked O’deorain where the fuck she got inspiration for her secondary fire. You know the ones Jack, those purple and yellow glowing balls that she shoots at people to mess with their energy or whatever. Before she went evil, evil. Jesse was like, ma’am. Orbeez wants their merch back.”

Jack tilted his head back and laughed, but almost hit Hana’s wall lined with wrenches and power tools and other mechanic stuff by accident. “Oh my god, I do remember that. Didn’t Jess walk around with a black eye for the rest of the week after that?”

“Try for the next  _ two _ weeks,” Gabe says. “It healed after a single week, but then he said something stupid again and she just punched his lights out the second time. Dumbass kid. Maybe… Hanzo Banan-zo will be good for him.”

Gabe admittedly didn’t know much about Hanzo Shimada, besides the fact that his family was really fucking evil. Like in the criminal empire sort of way. And well, damn. Who got to say they were the heir to a criminal empire? But if it was one thing Gabe did know it was that Hanzo knew how to count. Sometimes the kid would race a calculator, and that probably came off of ages of dabbling in the stock market or the likes. But there was a lot Hanzo didn’t know how to do that Jesse did, namely derive equations on the fly. Gabe was a proud father. Very proud.

Hanzo could be really stupid.

Like, they soon found out the man couldn’t fry an egg. Who didn’t know how to fry eggs? Eggs were easy. (Of course, eggs could also be sunny-side up and scrambled and well-done. Complimentary dad joke, free of charge. Bzzzzt). It was funny though, because one of them really liked red and the other one really liked blue.

And that made Gabe thing about this lawyer game he was obsessed with in his youth when he inherited a 3DS from his granddad. And that lawyer game made him think about the 2000s, a bygone era. And that made him think about the Killers and Mr. Brightside.

Mr. Brightside was a totally different decade though. Sometimes Gabe thought that he had been born in the wrong era. But then he remembered polio and the anti-vaxx movement and the systematic racism and the systematic homophobia too and the lack of colored photos. So he would just have to shrug that one off. The music slapped though. Understandably. 

Genji eventually finds himself in the garage as well, after hearing some movement in the hallway. He has this little nightcap on, and he’s matching with the stuffed pachimari he’s holding in his arms. Sometimes when Genji stayed up late, he got really esoteric. Like Zenyatta level of esoteric and philosophical, so people liked to make sure he was asleep.

Haha, esoteric is kind of esoteric.

“Hey, par-tay in D.Va’s garage. What’s up my homies?” Genji says. Of course, when Genji wasn’t being esoteric he just acted like he was in the 5th hour of a night-long summer party. So, the usual. “Hey… didn’t Deev’s just come back from a mission? I thought I saw Tracer video calling her gf Emily earlier, which means that everyone should be back already.”

Jack sighs as Genji kicks Gabe off the second bean bag chair. Gabe decides to sit on Jack’s lap. 

“I dont know where they went off to,” Jack says. “But something tells me it’s not good. I saw Jesse and Han make off like bandits in this Ferrari earlier this evening, if I’m not mistaken. I have no goddamn idea what they’re doing with a Ferrari. Maybe it’s all connected.”

“Oh yeah… the pink Ferrari. How much pink could a Ferrari drink if a Ferrari could drink pink?” Genji says. He adjusts the nightcap on his stuffed toy. “Can you believe we actually convinced Hanzo to redistribute like 95% of his wealth? The rest went into stocks for Hana in case she ever decides to get a college degree, honestly, not that she needs to. Smart enough. It’s kind of like how billionaires before the Revolution, like (cough) Elon Musk (cough), were obsessed with ‘philanthropy’ or whatever. But they just give away stocks and never actually donate money, just focus on evading taxes. Haha, sucker. Got what was coming to him.”

“Cheers to that, mate,” Gabe says while raising up his emo coffee mug. 

“Yeah,” Jack manages to say. He chugs down the rest of his coffee. He was getting way too old for this. 

Hana Song kept driving along the coast, just taking the car for a nice spin around the metaphorical block which was loosely defined. They passed PartyCity again, and everyone bemoaned the transfer of their notoriously discreet friend Esther, who was now wrestling halibut in the Arctic Ocean. They wished her the world of luck with her strong arms and her noble heart and her brightly colored jackets. And hoped that one day she would come to visit, but the woman was high in demand and understandably so.

And then they passed the shop of that one tailor that designed Jesse’s weird cape outfit with the sun motif and the weird hummingbird mask. Lacey the tailor. Jesse said his prayers and also swore that he would never bring the outfit to a dry cleaner so long as he lived because Lacey Cakes had her ways of acquiring information. And Jesse wasn’t going to get called out for smearing the whole thing in clay.

One time, that had actually happened to Angela. Angela, Overwatch’s resident doctor that almost always kept cool, lost her cool when Lacey called her out for ripping a Givenchi dress. In Angela’s defence, she had been attending a rather chaotic Opera sting. But Lacey didn’t care. 

Eventually the crew passed Rich Guy (the chef from the Spanish IKEA), eating a pizza by himself on the side of the road. And it wasn’t just a slice of pizza, it was the whole pizza. And they asked him if he was ok and if he needed any help. And he was like, no, dudes. Just vibing. So they let him go.

And eventually they started driving back to base, finally.

And then someone thought about Chrissy, the bumble fairy. Jesse had plans for the $40 worth of flower crowns he had purchased for that one interview, and decided that instead of donating them to a noble cause, he would simply regift them. The three R’s of recycling weren’t Reduse, Reuse, and Recycle. Jesse liked to think they were Reduse, Reuse, and Regift stuff you don’t want anymore because regifting things was a lot easier and arguably better for the environment than buying new things.

And then someone thought about Ricardo, the IKEA manager, with the fake smile. End of thought.

And then eventually, after more driving around, they made it back to base. Jack was standing right behind the stack of comms, but Gabe and Genji were in the middle of another arm wrestling match. Genji was the type of person that didn’t like losing. So when Genji lost a match that was 3 out of 5 he would argue that it was absolutely necessary to go 4 out of 7. And when it was 51 out of 100, he would argue that it was necessary to go another round for 52 out of 101.

“Wow, busted!” Lucio says as he jumps out from the Ferrari’s shotgun seat. He tries to sneak back Jack but Jack stops him. Lucio goes ‘aw’ and goes to help unload the car.

“And  _ where _ , pray tell, did all of you go without your comms?” Jack says. He crosses his arms like an angry mother bird. “What if you were attacked? What if you were accidentally lead into another a fake storefront by Talon? Think of that. Think about what you’ve done here.”

Jesse and Hanzo start unloading the trunk with Lucio and start pulling out their pieces of new furniture.

“Did you two go to IKEA?” Jack says. “Gabe, check it out. Looks like our boy and his new partner are going through the domestic phase.”

“Are you making fun of them? What’s wrong with being domestic?” Gabe says as he beats Genji in another round of arm wrestling. Genji grunts but forfeits for the night. This wasn’t over. Mark his goddamn words.

Jack gives Gabe a long, but meaningful gaze. A gaze that betrayed a lot of emotions like ‘dont fucking ask  _ me _ whats wrong with being domestic you bastard. Where were you all these years. Where. We’ve had this discussion a billion times but i dont know if im satisfied with your motivations. Being separated from you was the hardest thing ive ever experienced in my life and i still love you and if that makes me a sucker so be it. Im old and so are you and there are only so many things we can go through together before i want to punch you instead of using my words. Im possessive. Im so goddamn possessive and you mean the world to me’.

Gabe takes one good look at Jack and immediately understands. ‘Sorry’, he says back. ‘You were gone too though, don’t fuck with me. Let’s not do that again though. Fine, I get it. Stop looking at me like that, you’re causing a scene.’

“This is all for our Hana,” Hanzo says as he pulls out the cowboy-themed lamp from the trunk. He hands it to Lucio, who starts plugging it into an outlet by Hana’s primary workbench. And then he passes along the knick knacks to Jesse, who tries his best to place them on the table as well.

“Jack,” Hana says. “World’s Okayest Dad. We were just taking my new car out for a spin, I’m sure you understand. I’m sure you would also take your new car out for a spin if someone just gave you a Ferrari.”

“Jackie,” Gabe says. “They were just having some fun off base.” Gabe gets up to pat Jack on the shoulder a few times. Sometimes kids liked to act like kids and have fun, and that was ok too.

Silence.

A decent silence.

A serious silence.

Everyone waited for Jack to say something.

“Fine. Take your comms next time,” Jack says while he scratches his temples for some type of relief. “Please, just take your comms. I just… I worry about everyone.”

Lucio gasps and looks at Hana. “Does this mean?”

Hana looks at Lucio and it takes her a second to understand the implications of what Jack just said. She looks at Jack. “Do you mean… you’re Leigh’ing Aughf? Like, Lucio’s moniker you chose for this last mission? Mission GAY?”

Laughter erupts from the garage.

“You’re  _ still _ giving thse kids stupid codenames, huh, Jackie?” Gabe says. “That’s my guy.”

“Hey. I’m old. And I’m, white. And sometimes I run out of patience on babynames dot com. Give me a goddamn break, I have the attention span of a gnat,” Jack says. “Sometimes things don’t happen like they should and they don’t happen like we want them too but we have to accept those things for what they are and sometimes we get through those things anyways. That’s my old man rant. I’m keeping it short and simple today. Sorry, Lucio. You can pick your own name next time.”

Jack sighs for the billion time, and looks at Lucio just to find that he has fallen asleep already on one of the bean bags. He looks some more and finds that Hana has also fallen asleep on her own bean bag. He talked for two seconds, trying to make sense of things, and the kids had fallen asleep. The two start snoring loudly. He was jealous these kids could fall asleep so fast. It took him forever.

Jesse makes a ‘shhh’ noise and lifts Hana off the beanbag so he could carry her back to her room. Gabe opts for taking Lucio, after removing his headphones. The poor guy. And eventually the adult adults take the younger adults back to their respective rooms, but not before plucking some of the twigs from their hair first. They were highly covered in twigs from sneaking into that nature park. Still.

And everyone was really quiet for the rest of the night. Gabe and Jack fell asleep too. And come morning, Jesse and Hanzo snuck out again. Jesse takes him to this cliff he liked to visit when he was younger, which was right outside the base, and they both look out at the view.

And sometimes for moments like these, Jesse wished he still smoked. But he quit a long time ago, and would probably never go back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (puts my laptop down and collapses). the evil has been defeated. the evil... *goes to update my word count on nanowrimo dot com* FUCKIGN FINALLY GODDAMN
> 
> may we meet again when the dubs it so, and let's hope that's after I start taking self defense classes in case we meet at the back of a Denny's parking lot
> 
> LMK HOW U LIKED IT I LOVE HEARING FROM PPL :^)


End file.
